Dear Miriam, 
I have an associate degree in business. I work in a small business company as a processing manager. My salary is my means of supporting myself. I take classes in business administration in the community college and learn new and sometimes exciting concepts relating to business. However, I feel increasingly unsatisfied and unfulfilled at my 9-to-5 job. I feel stuck, unable to make a decision:
Go back to school?
Change my job? Work for a bigger company?
Start my own “small business”?
Any suggestions?
Barbara Q.

Dear Barbara,

The simplest and most popular answer to your questions would be “Do what you love and love what you do,” and money will follow. This expression refers to one of the most important challenges of our lives – discovering and pursuing our true purpose. In other words, we need to answer to ourselves the most fundamental question: What are we here to do?

It is only through discovering and fulfilling our purpose in life, through finding our true vocation, that life becomes meaningful and exciting, uniquely fits us, and brings creativity and joy into our very existence. We feel happy, energized, creative, and absorbed in our daily activities; and then our work day is not a 9-to-5 routine, but an integral part of our lives – our true vocation.

This step-by-step client-centered counseling process guides you to finding a fulfillment at work, through enabling you to take charge of your life and come from power instead of reacting; and finally, leads you to form goals for creating the future according to your inner vision. Together, we:

Explore your present situation;

Discover your true life purpose;

Set and achieve your goals;

Find and implement your definition of success;

Define and overcome your blocks to success;

Define your “money problem,” and identify ways to love what you do and do what you love by serving people with love and integrity.

This process is designed for anyone who has to make important life decisions – whether one is choosing a field, changing careers, trying to get more satisfaction out of work, starting one’s own business, reentering the job market or planning a new occupation for retirement. I would like to remind all of us of the beautiful and courageous words of Joseph Campbell, who himself was a living embodiment of pursuing true life purpose:

“If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself in a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you. I say follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and the doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”

Now, I hope you have some food for thought!

Miriam

P.S – After I finished this letter, these words came to mind. “There must be more to life than having everything.” – Maurice Sendak