How Do You Know You Have a Fulfilling Work?

Have you thought about doing fulfilling work? Now, what do I mean by fulfilling work? I believe work is fulfilling if it nourishes your soul. So if you can do this work, even if it doesn’t pay you or pays you modestly, it is fulfilling. Would you agree? Is it surprising? But then you may ask, we need to make money to save, then invest for retirement, kids’ college, and healthcare. What about it if the pay is not adequate? That is exactly what the dilemma is. But in time, if you can really define what “enough” is for you, you can explore work that is more fulfilling. So, in this post, let’s delve into how‌ you know you have‌ fulfilling work.

“If you follow your passion, you’ll never work a day in your life.” ~ Tony Bennett

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Why Do We Work? Do You Know You Have a Fulfilling Work?

This is something that I never questioned when I was younger. I graduated from college and immediately embarked on the journey to make a living and become independent. Just like anyone else, this is the grind. We go through it to start with meeting our daily needs. Then a time comes when our day-to-day needs are mostly met, we work to feed our ego. That may include the drive for more money, power, fame, and sex. In a nutshell, our insatiable desire for more and more status. For many, this hedonic treadmill never stops, and people keep running until they fall dead one day. But then there are people to whom this never-ending race doesn’t give joy and happiness anymore. They seek to find peace with themselves. That which can nourish their souls.

Meet Basic Needs

Of course we work to pay our bills. But the question is do we always need to keep on working to pay ours bills? Now we can say hey we just upgraded our lifestyle so need more money. Indeed that is interesting but also the fact for most people. Because our wants never ceases. As if its an never ending saga. An insatiable one. Consequently we are in this never ending loop and need to keep on running on the hedonic treadmill to make more and more. Then spend more and more. But it’s this healthy for the economy local as well as global? Now that could take us down into another rabbit hole.

Feed Our Ego

Therefore, the question is once we meet our basic needs, why do we want to keep on upgrading? Well, that is mostly because of two reasons. First, we can’t control our desires for more and more sensual pleasures. Second, they make us look better in our societies. Boosts our status, right? And that makes us feel proud of all our achievements that fund this upgraded lifestyle. One may say, “What’s the problem with this?”. This is living the dream, right?

Of course, it is. This is ‌predominantly what drives the economy and innovation. Boost the GDP and the stock market. Everyone loves it. Sounds perfect. Boosting our status makes us feel good, inflates our ego. Then our ego wants more because the instantaneous dopamine boost subsides. It wants more. Now there slowly greed creeps in. Eventually, this gets us into a tailspin and a vicious cycle. Finally, we lose our peace of mind. More anxiety and more stress. Well, we know the drill, but our ego loves it.

Nourish Our Soul

Then, finally, when we grow up, we realize working to feed our ego doesn’t give us peace of mind in the long term. It’s not that we don’t feel that there is always an inner desire to nourish our work through the work we do. However, in the din of ‌our ego, we silence our inner voice. But ‌our inner voice doesn’t stay silent. It continues to whisper. Finally, for many, it’s not possible to avoid listening to their inner voice anymore. Although there are many who still continue to silence their inner voice and let their ego drive their work.

Now, what does our ego whisper to us? Often it’s about having the security we always wanted, besides we have enough. If we were to die tomorrow, what is it we would want to do in these last twenty-four hours? Would we continue doing what we are doing? Since we don’t have enough time now. What is it that we do with the limited time that we have remaining now? Because most of the time we think we are going to live a lot longer and can think about all these when the time comes. So we keep ‌postponing even thinking about these questions. Therefore, we don’t take any action. We don’t listen to our souls.

Understand Our Desires

I think the most difficult work in this world is to understand ourselves. Now, does it sound surprising? In fact, we think we understand ourselves really well. Moreover, we also understand our desires and our fears well. However, this can be interesting. For example, if we want a job that pays well so that we can support our family to live a better quality of life that differs from striving for a job for more money just so that it makes us feel grander in front of family and others. Often we are confused between what we really love to do versus what makes us look better through the lens of societal expectations.

Besides, often we think we know our desires, but not really clear why we have these desires. For instance, we want to do a specific job or a role, but we don’t fully understand why we have the craving to do that role. Then, after a while, we realized we wanted to do that job to feed our ego. Now, doing any work to inflate our ego differs from doing ‌work that nourishes and expands our soul.

What Our Ego Wants

Our ego wants security and wants to protect us from adversity. Be it money, security, status, power, or even sex. Wants to excel or maintain that edge over others. Therefore, it loves to compare and see where it stands against others. So it wants us to stay safe in a stable job; it doesn’t want to take a lot of risks. It thrives on external validation; it feels good getting accolades. It also wants to stay in charge and in control in all circumstances. Thus, in a nutshell, our ego is the layers of conditioning we received since birth to protect us in this uncertain world, be it through family or society throughout our lives.

What Our Soul Wants

In contrast, what remains ‌of the layers of conditioning is our soul. Now that is what we are born with. As human beings, I think as we build our layers of ego around us over the years; we find it difficult to listen to our soul and understand what it really wants. The din of our ego is so loud we cannot hear the soft whispering of our soul. But I think it never stops whispering altogether as well. Guess when we grow up we learn the ability to listen to it. I believe our soul wants to connect and be in unison with the surrounding universe. It wants to care for and help others and coexist in harmony. That might sound utopian, but I think that is probably what our soul wants.

How Do You Know You Have a Fulfilling Work?

So how do you know you have fulfilling work? The fact of the matter is that everyone is different. For some, work is just a means to make money. But for others, it could fulfill an innate need to satisfy their ego. Then for some, it could be primarily to nourish their souls. Now nothing in life is this or that. Everything in life ‌has shades. It could be just a combination of all these drivers. But often there is a primary driver. The most important one.

For example, I moved on from my corporate job at 51 to explore the other side of life. I did my corporate job for 28 years, then came to a point that I had done enough of what I did all these years. Is there something else that I wasn’t even aware of that might pique my interest? For me, writing is a medium through which I explore and process my thoughts. In addition, I do want to start something of my own, so I am also taking the time to explore what that could be. I am not very sure. But I think it’s okay not to be sure. Probably it’s okay to not always have a plan. Guess maybe it’s okay to explore.

Work for Money and Ego

To me, probably the most fulfilling work we can do is when we do it just for the joy of doing it. It’s not for money. Because at some point more money will have diminishing marginal utility. Meaning the incremental value of more money would keep on declining in exchange for the time we spend on it to acquire. Unless the money becomes a scorecard, it’s not for the value we get from the money. But moreover, it’s to feed our ego as an achievement.

Then there is work which is primarily driven by our ego for power, fame, and sex. That which feeds our ego. Since working to inflate our ego continually is like incessantly performing for accolades and external validation. To me, it feels like a dependency or an addiction. It’s true we are addicted, and that becomes our purpose in life. Although that can change with time. But we need something to live for.

Work for Soul

Finally, the work we do to nourish our soul is primarily rare. It is the type of work we do just for the sake of the joy we derive from doing it. With no expectation of any compensation or accolades. I think that type of work is a vocation. That we can keep on doing until we die. It’s not for money. It’s not to feed our egos. Just work that nourishes our souls. Which we just love doing with no one watching or willing to pay for. Often I have struggled with what work could be for me. I am not sure, but I started this blog back in 2019, and every time I spend some time writing here it feels like a nourishing soul. Probably it’s a medium for me to even explore that.

Conclusion on How Do You Know You Have a Fulfilling Work?

Finally, the question is: how do you know you have fulfilling work? In a nutshell, is it straightforward to know you have‌ fulfilling work? Then the question points to what is fulfilling work? To me, work that energizes us is fulfilling work, and work that drains us is not fulfilling work. Now everyone is wired differently. I think it also depends on what phase of life we are in. For instance, at this point in my life, work that nourishes my soul is fulfilling. Early in my career, work that provided me with good compensation and career advancement was fulfilling. In that phase, work was for money and also to feed the ego. For me now, when I am financially independent, the motivations have changed. Now, this may or may not be the same case for everyone. Because for some life may not manifest as different seasons, it could be just one season as well.

I have acquaintances whose motivations for work have not changed. Which is perfectly okay. I presume it is for us to define what fulfilling work means to us. The motivation could be money to meet our basic needs, feeding our ego, or nourishing our soul. It could also be a combination of all, with one being a key driver.