Live Beyond Stress and Illness

A recent post on Marci Alboher’s New York Times Blog paralleled the story line of the Broadway Musical A Chorus Line to the lengths many of us choose to go in order to build a career centered on passion. Her post is worth a read if for no other reason than to salute her genius in finding a way to deduct theater tickets to one of the best Broadway shows ever!

Marci poses some questions regarding the common themes in A Chorus Line such as:

Should you sell out or toil away in obscurity doing what you love?

What happens once you reach the place in your career you’ve always aspired to?

Or what happens if you hit midlife or later and still haven’t arrived at the point you hoped to be?

All of these questions are bound to ignite some stressful thoughts and emotions as we pose them to ourselves from time to time. But it was her final question that really got me to thinking:

Whether artists or not, shouldn’t we all give thought to building careers that will serve us for a lifetime, not merely for a season?

How common and yet stilting a belief that so many of us have begrudgingly held onto from early adult hood—believing that we should build a career which serves us a life time. Should we really? Says who?

The nature of life births desire after desire after desire. What served me years ago isn’t necessarily going to continue to fulfill me in the same way today. With every achievement comes a new desire. I want more, I want different, I want the excitement, growth and adventure that doesn’t always come with doing the same thing over and over again. Are we setting ourselves up for disappointment in believing that we can live one dream, (one career) that will serve us a lifetime?

I’ve known many people who have stayed in careers that didn’t serve them any longer simply because of the weight of that unbearable belief—“We should find careers that serve us a lifetime.” The stress that comes with believing we’ve somehow missed the mark or failed ourselves when our passion for a particular career has fizzled out or when circumstances beyond our control have suddenly closed the door to us and our current career can be overwhelming. But what if you didn’t really fail? What if you simply were ready to grow, explore, or evolve? Since when did growing and evolving equate to failure?

Falling prey to the belief that we should build careers that serve us a lifetime has the power to keep many of us from living beyond our first dream, cultivating new talents we never knew we were capable of, employing strengths that we didn’t know existed within us, falling in love with adventure itself, and/or simply agreeing to experience the expansiveness of who we are.

I’ve worked with many clients who’ve stumbled into a period of their life where they can’t quite figure out why their career doesn’t bring them the fulfillment it once did. Instead of dwelling on the thought “I should still be happy with where I am today,” Why not honor the truth and consider this an opportunity to live a new desire that wants to be born? Instead of asking, “Why am I not still happy?” How about asking, “What will make me happy?” Give yourself permission to travel another road, expand, risk, and evolve into something or someone you never knew you could become.

If you are one of those people who has managed to build a career that continues to serve you throughout your lifetime—how magnificent for you! And if you are someone who enjoys the bursts of passion that come with “seasonal careers” and find yourself fulfilling more than one career venture—how magnificent for you too! When it comes down to it—seasonal or life long—aren’t the ones who win at life the ones who choose to live without regret?

What I know to be true for myself is this: I want a career—Seasonal or lifelong—that makes me thrilled to be alive. I want my career life to burst with a similar passion as that which Cassie, (from A Chorus Line) expresses when she sings at the top of her lungs…

All I ever needed
Was the music
And the mirror
And the chance
To dance
For you!