The purpose in life

Long before I knew the word Ikigai, I had a calling. Perhaps, not "the" calling, but a calling that came a few times, if I daresay so. At the back of my mind, I always thought that life was preparing me for my purpose.

Year 2000, I was assigned to (or loaned to) a new startup company with a dotcom mission, as a so-called Technical Consultant. I was in charge of training and managing a content creation team with zero-knowledge of HTML, and ensuring that the news contents were up and running live before 9AM every morning. It was a huge challenge for me, and my true colour was bursting out like throwing paints on a vertical canvas wall! Every morning, before staff from other departments arrived, I would be shouting and panicking (back then I didn't know I had anxiety) and shoving my small team of four ladies into writing the right HTML codes and linking them to the actual news sources. One of the team members is older than me, but during that "peak hour", there was no age boundary. The deadline was so clear, and I had to answer to my CTO if news were not uploaded correctly before 9AM. Nevertheless, it was fun, and this small team of ladies had special bond in the end. (We are slowly getting to the Ikigai, hold on...)

Year 2002, I started attending Master degree classes after work and on weekends. My peers from the Master of Science group were obviously from technical background - engineers, software developers, and some IT geeks. No offense, I was from software house too, but at least I "talked" to people, and was trying my best to be less introvert. OK, I admit, I was a chatter - "yippity yappity yeh" kind of person (and it got me to where I am today). After 2 semesters of coursework, it was research work and thesis writing time. My supervisor was kind of tough, because he had so many students under his wings, hence I ended up quite independent in my research thesis assignment. My colleagues had a supervisor who is well-versed in technical, from industry, who taught us technical courses like database management and software development. Towards the middle of the thesis writing stage, their supervisor came to me and said, "Sha.., why don't you help your friend here in his thesis. Give him some ideas and check his writing." I was stunned at that time, thinking, "Who am I to tell our Engineer guy here what to do?" Despite my doubt, I just said yes, because we were good friends, and I know my colleague is an introvert, a shy type, who may not know what to do when he was stuck in writing. Little that I noticed, I was the one who get others to group up and work on the thesis together, so that we had that sense of urgency and managed to focus on our research work, as well as getting feedbacks from one another on-the-spot when we're stuck in our writing. In doing so, I could also look after my engineer friend, like how his supervisor requested from me.

Year 2004, being an implementer of our internal systems for the past two years had put me in a position of (region wide) employee support and (corporate) trainer. Especially when there was a special technical task assigned to me alone - to calibrate an A0-sized tablet (hardware) and CADMeasure software to our in-house quantity surveying system for tender document preparation - I had to take charge of all related hands-on trainings. Handling employees enquiries and guiding them towards better usage of the information systems had brought me to situations where my colleagues from the technical departments (quantity survey) came personally to me saying, "Kak Sha..., we understood very clearly what you were explaining. It was so fun learning from you." I was surprised. That was the first time I received any compliment on a job well done. (Yes, we are getting closer to the Ikigai.)

Let me cut short and go straight to the last part...

As life goes on, I realised that I always had that itch to help others. According to the Ikigai, it falls under what I love and what I am good at, although bringing satisfaction, it felt useless. How many times have I cursed myself for being "too kind" in helping others when I had nothing in return. Even a colleague once said, "Why are you so 'noble', Kak Sha?" and I just laughed out loud because I thought it was funny. Perhaps the satisfaction doesn't last long, or it is overwhelmed by the uselessness feeling that comes after the satisfaction. As an example, I found myself drowning in guiding and mentoring others in their studies and in solving their problems, even though they are not my students nor their problems affect me in any way. Quite a number of Master and PhD students who approached me for guidance, and I helped in breaking their problem into small pieces that are clearer and easier to manage and solve. I know I am good at that. In the end, their supervisors get the recognition when the students graduated with good thesis, not me. At times, my best friend kept reminding me, "Don't spread yourself too thin," when she saw me trying to meddle into so many things. I always nodded and that "pauses" of meddling around was there for a while, before my unconscious self said "yes" to another problem, and another, and another...

I jumped from technical career to academia in 2008, with a few try-outs in 2006-2007 at small institutes as part-time instructors, thinking that I would make the world a better place with the share of knowledge I have. In Ikigai, it falls under what I can be paid for and what the world needs, which gives excitement but also the sense of uncertainty. It gave me a huge pang in 2015 when I felt very distant from my students, during my service as Section Head of QA. I felt lost and most uncertain about my life because I felt so unsatisfied, although I know I am good for that post. Students were "afraid" of me, because my office was at the same level as the Dean and other high administrative posts. I had less engagement with the students, even those in my own class, partly because I only had one course to teach and the students never knew me before. Meetings and workshops on daily basis gave me more stress and anxiety, which made things worse. Before the end of my 2-year contract, I stepped down to the level I most comfortable - frontline in teaching, researching, supervising, and mentoring. Ever since then, I was never called for any administrative posts.

Here, I've covered passion and vocation. Let me leave the other two - mission and profession - to a later day. In the end, after going through so much of heartbreaks, failures, being back-stabbed politically at work, being lied to, being used and manipulated, I realised that my purpose in life is just to help others who really need my expertise. If it turns out that the person who benefits my share of knowledge and experience turns against me or lies to the world about my true self and sincerity, then there's nothing I can do but move on. There are others who would be starving for my guidance. There is no point of regretting what you love to do - your passion. If the person who benefits is really a human, he or she will one day understand and remorse. He or she may not return to apologise, and I don't expect them to, but I hope he/she will pay forward the positive things he/she has benefited from me. That is all I hope for, because in the end, it is about being a human.

I thought I came to my sense of Ikigai because I have crossed over 40, but I was wrong. The journey in life that I was going through since childhood to today is preparing me (yes, still preparing because there's no end in learning) for my purpose in life.

What about you? How was your life journey like, and what would be your purpose in life?

#ikigai #lifepurpose #passion