A lot of people thought I was crazy to leave my job last year, being in my mid 20's and travelling the world essentially for free is the stuff dreams are made of, right?
Well, to an extent, but what was missing for me amongst all of this was a sense of true purpose, a mission!
Whilst I certainly enjoyed a lot of things in my job, I couldn't help but get rid of that nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I was wasting my talents. That may sound really stupid considering that I was getting paid well and enjoying a lot of incredible experiences whilst travelling, but the truth at the heart of it was, I was not in alignment with a true sense of purpose.
I was essentially the technical mouthpiece for a company trying to convince people that our products were the best even though I knew in some cases that the competitor products were superior. For anybody with a conscience, having to engage in intellectual dishonesty of any kind for a paycheque just isn't sustainable, though I understand that for a lot of people, this is business as usual.
In January 2015 and 2016 I visited Peru to partake in some deep personal work with Ayahuasca, I'm not going to discuss this in detail in this post, but for those who are familiar with this medicine, it can have truly profound positive impacts on people who work with it. For me, these experiences provided me with a lot more clarity, it helped me to trust myself in my decisions and to have the courage to move forward even in the face of strong resistance.
Not long after my visit to Peru last year, I was visiting Japan for work and I learnt a great new word, Ikigai (生き甲斐), which essentially means "reason for being". I think this is a great thing contemplate when we're trying to find our true purpose.
I'm not saying that everything is perfect now, I certainly miss the travel a lot, but I do feel much happier with the abundance of time I can now invest in my health and meaningful entrepreneurial pursuits.
I wanted to write this post to reach out to the Steemit community and connect with others who have made similar transitions or are going through big life transitions at the moment, thanks for reading and I look forward to discussing further.
Howard