Career is often the realm of career counsellors, employment agencies, and coaches. And it comes up all the time in therapy, too. It’s a question about purpose and happiness and stress and meaning. Talking about career is talking about your life. A particular area. And it’s an area that our theories don’t talk as much about.

Asking these questions seems to be an ongoing quest for myself personally.

My inner chorus (thank you Sandra Buechler for that term) includes:

Donna Orange in my ear talking about vocation. Talking about listening. I hear her saying that work is as much about receiving and responding as it is about pushing forward.

Viktor Frankl reframing the question about the meaning of life as, “life questions us.” There is no one to ask the question, “what is the meaning of life?” There is only us living and asking the question.

And there is my belief in the unconscious. I read in a free associative train that is determined by my curiosities and my interests. I don’t know what to make of where I am led but I know the physiological response I have when I find the next thing I know I must absorb. We choose our movies, books, colour schemes, and friends based on our conscious and unconscious selves. There is a working out and working through that shows itself in how we choose to live.

I have found that while the cognitive loop continues... What should I do? Why does it matter? What is a good life? What has meaning? so does life. My life happens while my cognitive loop continues. I think, I ruminate, I loop, I feel, I have my morning coffee, I see clients, I have dinner, I wake up again the next day. It happens.

Now that I’ve written down these few thoughts I feel there is so much more.

I’ll also say this. There is most definitely a place for career counselling. And living our lives happens with us. We can’t outsource that responsibility.

And joining a profession doesn’t abdicate us of anything either. Jobs have rules and ethics but we must reckon with them. We can’t abdicate ourselves to our professions. And we have to tolerate our professions too.

Have a good Tuesday.