Helen’s Place LLC Update: July 6, 2022
It’s not enough to ask young children, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” because the concept of work is too abstract without experience, and children have no experience starting out.
As children grow, some of the luckier ones have connections to a place in this world with family. They are around a family business such as a restaurant or small business, where they watch parents or relatives earn a living, and feel secure knowing that they can join the family business when they grow up, if they want to.
Other lucky ones belong to families all sharing an occupation that they feel akin to like a family of doctors or firefighters. They are comfortable to attend college or training to follow in the footsteps of those who came before them.
Then there are the blessed people who are exposed to something growing up, like music, where from that moment on they know it will be their life. These are the people who say, “I always knew what I wanted to be from the time I was…”
Most Americans don’t have connections to where they fit in, and are left on their own to find it, which can be like reading a book they want to relate to – stressful, uncomfortable and sometimes exciting;
This describes American culture. Those with resources often go to college, but not all people who attend college figure out where they belong either.
Which leaves a great number of Americans, with or without college, in quest mode to find their place in the world. Here, people who grew up in areas of the country with diverse populations working in various occupations may have an advantage because they have a better sense of possibilities.
But even with diversity exposure, people who have experienced trauma are more likely to start on a path of dead-end jobs for a different reason than not having a vision of what’s possible.
For them, success belongs to someone else because they don’t believe, “You can do anything you set your mind to if you only you work hard enough.” Their reality is that it’s someone else who gets the breaks in life and succeeds and not them.
The truth is that for some people it’s harder to find a place in this world because they have more psychological barriers to overcome – such as lack of confidence, effects of poverty, physical or emotional abuse, and learning disabilities to name a few; and this is the hand they were dealt.
But no one has to be stopped by their past experience, and most people have the capacity to think bigger and expand their ideas of what they can do in their life. But no one said it was going to be easy to do that; It requires a decision and a commitment to concentrate on their emotional fitness and keep trying.
For starters, people must eliminate those in their life who put them down, because when you’re on a quest for your life, sometimes you have to go it alone without listening to the static from those who think you’re not worthy.
Finding one’s path requires waking up your senses and being alert and prepared to take action when something that interests you comes your way. Clues can come from anywhere at any time and be something you see, hear or think of. It’s helpful to keep a discovery journal of ideas to document your quest, and reread it often to gain more insight as you move forward.
If you have limited knowledge of what you’re good at or no clear direction what to do first, take any job and discover where you’re headed by process of elimination, learning what you like and don’t like as you try different jobs.
Be a builder or a wrecking ball worker; try working in a garden. Expose yourself to every kind of job you can think of until you find the connection to your life and can go from there.
Some people go all the way to the end of their lives before they figure it out. Although philosopher Henry David Thoreau never said, “life is a journey not a destination,” it is according to Ryan Hanley in his article of a similar name, “Why Life Really is a Journey and not a Destination.” This article is well worth reading.
Many older people say that the only people who don’t find their place in this world are those who give up trying. This is because the world is not for someone else – it’s for you, but some people didn’t get the memo or don’t believe it.
Related audio/video recording:
“Rest at the end, not in the middle…be yourself.” Kobe Bryant
YouTube, March 7, 2022, “IT’S NOT THE DESTINATION, IT’S THE JOURNEY” – Kobe Bryant Motivational Speech:
Other related article you might be interested in:
Helen’s Place LLC, November 30, 2021, “Beg, Barter, Salvage and Share
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