My First Sweet, Sweet Taste of Fulfillment

Let me just make this note on the topic of fulfillment before I begin.


"Choosing to live our lives based on our values is not what society has taught us to do.  It is not the easy, well-trodden way.  Most of us settle for what we can have.  We make choices based on what others want, what would be easiest, what would cause the least discomfort.  We tolerate.  We compromise.  We give up.  It's no easy task to get on the track for fulfillment, or to stay on track after that path has been chosen.  This is why we emphasize that choosing a fulfilling life is a radical act... Fulfillment is a life fully lived, a life that is valued and without regret." (Reference:  "Coactive Coaching" L. Whitworth, et al.)


Okay okay okay.  One more quote, because I LOVE quotes.  


"I think Western culture has things backwards. We equate comfort with happiness, and now we are so comfortable we're miserable. There's no struggle in our life, no sense of adventure. I've found that I'm never more alive than when I'm pushing and I'm in pain and I'm struggling for high achievement. In that struggle, I think there's a magic. Unless you're pushing yourself, you're not living to the fullest. You can't be afraid to fail, but unless you fail, you haven't pushed enough. If you look at successful people and happy people, they fail a lot because they're constantly trying to go further and expand."
--Dean Karnazes, "Outside," Jan. 2007 issue

Today marks the first bite of the feeling I have been chasing for 2 years now.  It is hard to believe it has been 2 years.  Two years ago it would be somewhat surprising to me in what form this feeling would present itself.  I think many college grads expect fulfillment to come when they write their first snappy report on their job and get a raise and when they get the perfect significant other and buy a house together.  Not to say that it doesn't come from these things, but not nearly as often as I had originally expected.  I made the mistake that happiness lay on the path to a life well-lived.  The mistake I made was just as hidden to me as what I wrote in that sentence.  What is wrong with a life well-lived?  What I didn't realize is that I assumed a "life well-lived" was the life I had been socialized to see as well-lived.  I began to feel confused when I got a degree and a job and a new car and moved to a new city that I was actually worse off than I had been in many ways.  How confusing.  I had put in so much work to get where I had gotten.

I started to have this hunger to make a difference in the world.  I want to live a life of meaning and love.  I want to look back and smile to think of the people who are happier and more fulfilled because of contributions I made.  I sat down to write a visualization (a form of writing a goal) a few months back.  I closed my eyes and imagined the best feeling I could have for a career.  My goal involves me teaching people material which improves the quality and overall happiness of their lives dramatically (something which based on scientific data and research).  The material I imagine for my goal is surrounding something I feel passionate about, something which draws me in and energizes me like nothing else.  When I initially wrote this goal I had it in my mind that it would involve returning to school and potentially pursuing another avenue for my career--most likely something in the field of psychology.  I didn't understand what type of material it would involve, I just knew the basic framework and the feeling I'd have.

Work paid for me to attend an industry conference.  While there, I took several courses on career development. The deal is that I bring back my material and present it.  Like any decently shy person, this fills one small quadrant of your heart with fear for the months before the presentation (so why I dream of presenting is interesting, I probably attribute it to the confidence I want to own one day).  At the conference, I ended up taking two courses that were very fascinating to me.  The first was a meditation class disguised as stress relief course (smart guy to do that for a bunch of engineers...).  The second was a class on creating a brand for yourself/professional image.  I loved the courses and set out to write the presentations over Thanksgiving break.  Just writing presentations brings on an amount of anxiety!  Is this going to be a monotone presentation?  Are they going to wonder why the heck I am bringing back a bunch of information on meditation to a group of stress engineers?  Will I completely miss the mark?  It took me nearly 8 hours to write a presentation which was to last 15 minutes (10 if I ended up micro-machine commercial man talking it out of nervousness).  I was chastising myself for wasting so much of my own vacation time for something which might soon be forgotten.

I practiced it in a nervous and quiet voice 3 or 4 times the nights before in my room.  Not all of my words came out clearly, and that could only get worse in front of 30 people, not to mention 30 middle-aged male engineers.

I showed up at the agreed upon time for the group meeting.  I was nervous and using the breathing techniques learned in the stress relief class discretely as I sat waiting for the manager to finish the recognitions and the holiday party announcement.  And I still have no idea how this happened, but it did.

I stood up and started talking.  I didn't look at my cards but maybe 1/10th of the time.  I ADDED in interesting things I remember from the class that were not in my notes or on my cards (when I usually get nervous and skip things IN MY OWN NOTES by accident).  Here is the shocker for me:  I made people laugh on more than one occasion.  I could feel how much I enjoyed the topic while I was speaking about it.  I could see some members of the audience lean forward (I assumed this meant they were interested, it is possible they had back pain, but I prefer to assume the first thing).  I cared about the material I was presenting to them and that it would affect their careers and lives for the better.  I have never met most of them and yet I still felt this dynamic.  I could feel the connection with them as I spoke.  I didn't feel as if I was on stage alone, my voice echoing in the awkward room of a one-sided conversation, I felt as if I were talking and they were responding, even though they weren't speaking to me.  I spoke about stress after their manager had congratulated them for all of the work he was astounded they accomplished.  I looked directly at the people who he had mentioned and they were smiling and nodding as I spoke.  When I finished speaking, several people spoke up to say thank you and that I did a good job with the presentation.  I even got an email to thank me for sharing the information afterwards and about the impact this would have on someone's work and personal life.  I am still incredulous that I stood up to speak and it impacted anyone enough to send an email.  But maybe that is where passion carries us.  I am beginning to understand the magnificent power behind passion.

The big deal here is not that I made a good presentation (actually, to me, that is a HUGE deal).  So, the even more gigantic deal here is this:  sweet fulfillment may only be a few months away in the form of something you would have never anticipated.  It may not require a move across the country to return to grad school and find a new career.  It may come in the form of engaging others (in the same job you have), presenting second-hand material on a subject you love and believe in, at a group meeting where everyone normally falls asleep.  Forget that it was something I had been looking forward to getting over with for months now.  I started to realize as I was writing my presentation, depending on how I framed the material and how much energy I put into it, that I would actually be fulfilling my goal for a career as I had written it.  It felt ten times better than I imagined and those 20 minutes (I ended up add libbing 5 min onto my original material!) were worth all 8 hours of vacation time used on writing the presentation.  Most importantly, I will never forget this day and this feeling will carry on and embolden me into new territory towards my life of ultimate fulfillment.

Hop to it, son!  Write down what you want out of life.  Go after it.