By Natasha Josefowitz, Ph.D.
LA JOLLA, California — One of my friends recently told me she felt she was always searching for something, but didn’t know exactly what she was looking for. She doesn’t have a mission in life, she said, like a passion to paint or write. She has a job she likes, but it does not enthrall her. She is happily married but worries if there is something extraordinary out there that she’s missing.
Her question made me wonder whether it is a disservice to lead people to expect a “life passion” or a “life mission” as necessary for fulfillment?
Is it necessary to have a passion to be satisfied with one’s life? Yes, it is wonderful to have a great talent for painting, writing, or music or working in scientific discoveries, making a difference in the lives of children or the lives of patients in a hospital or being innovative in technology, but these do not have to be all consuming. These and other endeavors can be fulfilling but only one part of one’s life, with satisfaction also found in family and leisure activities.
After my husband died, I was so bereft that I felt my life had lost all meaning. A psychologist friend of mine said, “Meaning is overrated.” It helped me to put my life into perspective. And so it is with passions and missions. They are unnecessary in most people’s lives. Yes, it would be nice to dedicate ourselves to the betterment of mankind—but how many of us have opportunities to do that?
Is it possible to expect too much of oneself, to romanticize passion and mission? Can one of life’s goals be something totally different, such as trying to have integrity in all of one’s dealings, to be honest in communications, to do the best one can in making others’ lives a little easier, to be compassionate—in other words to be content with being a good person? Content with one’s work, with one’s family life?
Some people do have an all encompassing need to be creative; the great artists of the world sacrificed everything for their art. Other people are true missionaries and spend their lives in the service of others.
And then there are the rest of us who muddle along wondering what is missing when we don’t feel the urge to do great deeds or lack the opportunity to be heroic. There is a need to transcend oneself, to be part of something larger, to serve some greater cause. Many of us have known the exhilarating feeling of sharing something momentous with one’s neighbors and community. When people battle floods together or unite as a community to raise a barn or renovate a park, they experience a high from working hard towards a mutual goal. We feel joy and camaraderie celebrating the success of sports teams we support and spill out into the streets with our neighbors when they win a championship. But these events occur infrequently, and so we must make the best of just dealing with our daily lives.
I too am often torn between feeling, on the one hand, that I should do more volunteer work and be more active in my community, and on the other hand, thinking that at 86 I can allow myself to read more, see friends, and smell the flowers. So maybe it is also OK to not have a passion or a mission but just do the best we can every day.
Perhaps being oneself, being there for family and friends, is really not only good enough, but actually quite wonderful. One of my goals is to never let a day go by that I don’t have some positive interaction with someone. It can be a kind word to a checkout clerk at the supermarket or a warm hello and how are you to the delivery man. I believe these small acts of caring may make a difference to the person in the moment and may even carry on further in the way he or she interacts with the next person. They say a butterfly flapping its wings in Africa has an impact on the air currents half-a-world away, and so it is with every little thing we do.
*
Josefowitz is a freelance writer, who may be contacted via natasha.josefowitz@sdjewishworld.com This article was initially published in La Jolla Today.