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Wellness Wednesday for April 19, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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How many of y’all find purpose in your career? I try to but ultimately I don’t think my work is that important. I’m not sure what else I could reasonably do that is important, is the problem.

I have people I care about and get meaning from other sources, but work is a perennial stress in my life since I spend so much time on it. Periods in my life where I haven’t had to work have been excellent and I have zero issues finding happiness and meaning, but obviously we have to make a living.

How does everyone else cope with a lack of meaningful employment?

I find it meaningful to contribute, whether that is to my family, my work group, my company or society. Preferably what I do accomplishes all these things.

When I felt like I didn't contribute much to either my company, work group or society at my last job (I was still well paid), I just switched jobs.

What line of work are you in?

Sales. I think part of the issue is even though I do contribute, sales just feels slimy to me. It pays well though.

So, you're in a famously soulsucking field that feels "slimy" to you.. To me it sounds like something would be wrong if this gave you meaning.

Ya know, fair point.