What Color Is Your Parachute? (9 page)

In sum, remember that all of these are worthwhile values and outcomes, all of these are necessary and needed, in this world. The question is, which one in particular do you feel most called to bend your energies, your skills and gifts, and your life, to serve, while you are here? By answering this broad, overarching question, you will help your intuition uncover the details of your mission, down the road. And more and more, as time goes by.

You can figure out where to go from here with your life, even if you base your life on sheer luck.

There are, however, three things you can do, to help. They are:

1. Attention
   

2. Intersection
   

3. And, knowledge
   

We turn, first, to “attention.” Don Tapscott, in his book,
Grown Up Digital
,
¹
writes:

Story #1: The story is told of a biologist who was walking through Times Square in New York City, with a friend, at high noon, when suddenly the biologist exclaimed, “Oh, listen to that cricket.” The friend stared at him in total disbelief. “How can you hear a cricket, above all this racket and noise?” he asked. Without a word, the biologist reached into his pocket, seized a big handful of change, and tossed the coins up into the air. As they bounced on the pavement below, everyone around them whirled around and pounced on the coins. “See,” said the biologist to his friend, “we hear what we’re listening for.”

Story #2: I was called in, to resolve a conflict situation that had arisen on a major college campus. Campus ministry, there, had decided to unite, so six ministers of various Protestant denominations were now housed in one building, which happened to be owned by the Lutherans. The union had not gone smoothly, and in fact I was the third consultant to be sent in, there, with a view to eliminating the wrangling and tensions that went on, among the six. And had been going on, for two years. It was in “the pillow days.” We didn’t use chairs; we sat on the floor, leaning against large stuffed pillows. So, I asked them to sit on the floor, in a circle. With the support staff—receptionist, secretary, and such—there were twelve in the circle. I then gave them these instructions:
write down the names of the other eleven sitting here, and beside each name, put what you think are their favorite skills or tasks, that they most delight to do.
They took a while, to think and ponder. Then we began in earnest. “Let’s start with Bill,” I said. “Going around the circle, each of you tell Bill what you wrote down, about what you think are his favorite tasks or skills that he most delights to use. Then, when you’re all done, Bill will tell us who guessed correctly.” And so it went. All eleven told their guesses to Bill. Then we asked Bill, “How did they do?” They had all missed by a mile, except one.

So, we went on to the next person in the circle: his name was Chuck. When the circle had all read Chuck their best guess about him, I again asked Chuck, “How’d they do?” They had all missed by a mile, except one. And so it went, with all the rest, and without exception. They had all worked side by side, day after day, week after week, and yet hadn’t a clue as to what the other people’s favorite tasks and skills were. (The
one person who did correctly guess them all, incidentally, was the receptionist.) In the late afternoon of that day, after they’d gotten over their personal chagrin about how much
they just hadn’t noticed
, they all renegotiated what their individual responsibilities would now be, within that united facility—because now they knew what each preferred to do. And peace reigned, there, from then on.

Story #3: A job-hunter was lamenting to me about the fact that she had never ever enjoyed anything she had ever done, so how could she now identify what her favorite anything was—in her search for her passion and mission in life? I answered her, “Unless you have been in extreme depression all your life, it’s simply impossible that you haven’t ever enjoyed yourself during all the forty-one years you’ve been here on earth. What
is
possible, and indeed almost certain, is that you’ve never noticed, because you were never taught to pay any attention to, what exactly you were doing—what tasks you were doing, what skills you were using—when you were most enjoying yourself. You were probably taught that it was immodest or self-centered, to notice such things. So, your mind is a blank about this whole subject of ‘Enjoyment, and You.’ This can, however, be easily remedied by your starting to make it your business to notice from here on out when you are really enjoying yourself, what you are doing, what tasks, what skills.”

You’re going to live your life relying on luck? Pay attention.

The second aid to finding your purpose in life, if you depend upon luck, is intersection. Luck depends on stumbling across someone with information that you don’t have. Luck depends on intersections between you and other people. The more, the better. If you’re depending on luck, to guide you in life, get out more. Talk to people more. Luck, as they say, depends on random opportunity suddenly crossing your path. That can’t happen if you’re essentially hiding in a cave.

Finally, luck, “they” also say, depends upon the prepared mind. And so, we come to the third thing you can do, to make your life more “lucky.” Knowledge. Knowledge is important, and knowledge about the whole process of the job-hunt is readily available. There are a million things that you
weren’t
taught in school, but should have been, to prepare you for this time in your life. So, what follows after this chapter, is a series of chapters trying to give you knowledge about the things that school never taught you.

Depending on luck to get you through this life? The more prepared your mind, the more it knows all there is to know about the job-hunt and career-change and career choice, and all related stuff, the more your luck will change.

Okay, let’s see what we’ve covered in this chapter: it is important, before you enter on the job-hunt, to decide exactly what you are looking for—whether you call it your passion, or your purpose in life, or your mission (your call). Some people instinctively know this, others of us must be taught it.
Passion first, job-hunt later
.

Then, if you are trying to figure out where to go from here with your life, the first thing to notice is how you tend to live your life: is it by depending on step-by-step planning, when you can? Or is it by depending on intuition? Or is it by depending on luck?
(People tend to job-hunt or figure out what they want to do with their life, in exactly the same way that they live their life.)

Once you have decided
that
, there are steps you can take to guide your planning, or your intuition, or your luck, in deciding where you want to go from here with your life.

Click
here
to view the PDF version of How to Find Your Passion, Your Purpose, Your Mission, in Life.

If you take these suggestions seriously, you can and will catch a vision of what your life can be. And that vision should excite you so much, that you will pursue your job-hunt with extra vigor, energy, and enthusiasm.

As for the step-by-step planning, the WHAT, WHERE, and HOW, if you want help with that (and most people do), when you are ready, turn to “The Flower Exercise” in
Part II
of this book. It should take you, basically, a weekend, to work through it. Don’t try to fill it out alone. Work with two other people, if you possibly can. Preferably two other people who are searching for the meaning and purpose of their own life.

Never, never, ever give up. Never. Never.