How did you find passionate meaningful work?

I have been slowly losing income from an obsolescent job that I have done for 30 plus years. It now does not pay enough to sustain ordinary life.

I saw this coming, so 3 years ago I started spending my life savings on getting retrained, and living the meanwhile. I am 3 years in to a 5 year program to get a Masters in social work.

I chose it because I want to spend my last 10–15 years helping people.

I labelled this as a great question because it’s something I’m going through as well. I think my scenario is a bit different. I’ve been stuck as a supervisor in a bookstore and lean on my parents a lot. I’m finally going back to school to insure some sort of better future. I’m lost as well, though, wondering where I’m going and am I going to feel passionate about where I end up? I’m a bit of a risk-taker and I’m just winging it for now. I hope that helps.

I trusted my gut, I found meaningful work I was passionate about, and got screwed over by politics. If you follow your passions, you will almost certainly find something that you can be passionate about.

At the same time, working for filthy lucre at a job you don’t much care for has a lot to recommend it too.

Some suggestions are:

* Make a list of what you would do 8 hours per day without pay.

* Make a list of community organizations that are important to you-those you relate to in some way-and volunteer.

* Ask yourself “Why you were made?” Take a ½ day. Check into a hotel. Take a notebook with you and answer this question in as many ways as you can. Don’t lift your pen or pencil off of the paper. Keep writing. Don’t edit, censor, or hold back. Keep writing. The first 30 min or so will be fluff. The kind of stuff anyone would come up with. After you write through the common, you’ll break through to the unique and specific. Keep writing. Don’t stop until you hit something so visceral it brings you to tears.

Seach for your contribution (notice that I didn’t call it “meaningful work”) in that.

Good luck!

I find that most of the time, despite planning and education, one doesn’t always have complete control over what job they land in. But, if you live your ore with passion and enjoy the miricle of every moment, that attitude will invade all aspects of your life including your career.

You’re a network admin. There are peripheral skills you can acquire that could really spark your entrepreneurial spirit. If you don’t already know html, css, flash, photoshop, learn them and others, create websites in your spare time, for fun, about things you’re interested in. You might find something you’re passionate about, by accident and when that happens you can turn your new passion into a web-based business.

I can relate to what you wrote, because I am like that in that I am interested in most things and good at a lot of things.

I used to be very envious of people who knew their whole lives they wanted to be a fireman or a sports broadcaster or a nurse.

I just fell into many of the jobs I loved the most. Keep an eye out for opportunities. Let yourself be flexible. This will be harder since you have a family to support. Talk with your spouse about your feelings.

Perhaps you could try volunteering at organizations in some of those areas of interest such as science.

Good luck. Don’t ever give up searching for your passion.

It was expensive and risky, took a lot of working around the clock, sleeping on the floors of the business and it didn’t help my marriage much. I was doing what I loved, it was part of my identity, lifestyle, ego, everything. It was kind of dangerous how passion for it took the place of so much else.

You must first find what you enjoy doing, then you must look deeper, and find the job that accomlishes the most but is still in your line of interest. this is passionate and meaningful work.