Work we were made for
The Jean and Alexander Heard Library, Vanderbilt University.
When I arrived at Vanderbilt as a freshman, I told people I wanted to be a doctor.
I only half meant it.
I didn’t really know what I wanted to be. And it turns out you can’t become a doctor if you only half mean it. Had I really meant it, I think I could have been an okay doctor. But I never would have thrived.
I was made for different work.
When we find a job or project in harmony with our nature, that’s where the magic happens. It will look like work to everyone else, but it will feel like play to us.
That’s easier said than done. But that’s what we need. That’s what the world needs.
I’ve had jobs that felt like work. Jobs where I had to drag myself out of bed to tackle the day. There’s dignity in grit.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Today, my job would look like work to most people. Selling and slide decks and writing and traveling and speaking and lots of conversations with lawyers and business brokers. But it feels like play to me.
It’s a virtuous cycle.
Finding work in harmony with our nature is only possible if we first understand our gifts. If we recognize the innate strengths we too often take for granted because they come naturally.
“Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent.”
- Parker Palmer, Let your Life Speak
The world doesn’t need us to be the next Martin Luther King, Jr., Steve Jobs, Malala Yousafzai, or Dr. Oliver Sacks.
The world needs us to find work in harmony with our nature. Work that lets us be and helps us become the best version of ourselves.
Work we were made for.
