Reverse Engineering Your Life

We are a culture that values working and productivity. We start our wee little ones out in kindergarten now with a full day ahead of them. Just last week my granddaughter started kindergarten and when she didn’t get off the bus when my daughter was there to pick her up, the bus driver found her asleep on the bus seat. I will admit I am ambivalent in many ways about our values and our systems. 

Just recently, I read an article that questioned if following our passion is really a good idea; is this really a way to make our way in life? The author was critical of this idea and skeptical. Maybe rightly so. We have so many messages that we are bombarded with these days, especially now with social media, it’s confusing. And with the style of writing that is becoming the norm, the quick, witty, everybody’s an expert 2 minute read, it’s hard to know really, what the person’s expertise really is.

Without really wanting to be an expert, with trusting the wisdom that I have from my emotions, from my body, this in a way, has become my expertise. I have learned that what we do does not necessarily generate the feelings that we want to feel, unless we are doing things that we are passionate about. It doesn’t even have to be doing something that we are passionate about in the short term as long as it aligns with something that we are passionate about (the outcome). 

But what our culture does, from the time we are very very young, is train us to perform. This is what our schools do, and this is the subtle value that creep into children’s minds: you are only as good as your performance. This value is within the overarching value that your time is no longer your own. You need a hug from mom, too bad, you are at school until the school day ends. Your time is not your own. Your teacher has power over you, and the power to discredit you to your parents and your peers. Your voice is small. 

And so, in the structure of school, what happens to our emotions, the way we feel? And at home, what happens to our emotions, the way we feel? Do we learn that our feelings matter, or do we continue to try to figure out how to perform in ways that will get us promoted? From one grade to the next, from one school to the next, and on and on from high school to college to the working world. And in between these transitions, how are we feeling? Good enough, smart enough, loved enough, seen, heard? 

What if we as a culture, focused more on how we felt, and less on how we think? And what if we believed that if we just left children to their curiosity and passion for learning that they would grow up just fine? Until we do that, how can we as adults change the values we've internalized about how life works, and create lives that have meaning, that support us, and that we feel passionate about?

I have become a firm believer in reverse engineering your life, this means, you decide how you want to feel, the values that are important to you, and then you let the universe fill in the blanks. I’ve done this off and on in my life and it works. I have no magic formula other than figuring out what has felt good, and what you want to feel more of. When I was newly divorced, and hadn’t worked in years and had to get a job, I had just finished my undergraduate degree at Augsburg weekend college. I had been commuting weekends from Owatonna to Minneapolis, and I loved being back in the city. And so, when I had to get a job back in Owatonna, I imagined to myself, “I want a job that feels like I did while I was at Augsburg.” I did this more wistfully than willfully, not quite knowing the power of creating how we feel. 

After a couple of terrible temp jobs, I ended up working (through the temp agency) at the front desk of a conference center owned by the University of St. Thomas, right down the road, in Owatonna. I hadn’t even known this center existed in the little town I lived in. The job was a good fit, I liked how I felt being there, even though being a receptionist was not what I envisioned. I was hired full-time and eventually promoted to the sales and marketing assistant. It was a job that I loved for most of the time I was there. 

It was actually that job, that fueled my interest in being a therapist. While there, we had life coaches and teachers come in and present seminars and teach. I was intrigued by a profession in which you could study and learn and share what you’d learned; either one on one, or in a group. That you could connect with people on a level that was not about their performance, but about their passion. 

And so, I wonder how each of us can become more connected with how we feel, and if we can conjure up in our imaginations not just where we want to be, not just a professional fit, but a professional feeling? How do you want to feel every day, how do you want to spend your days? How does someone come to believe that when they are a child and they love the sea, that they can play in the sea every day and become a marine biologist, instead of an engineer in an office? Is it ok to love your life, to value your time, to not mark your days by the time clock, but by the sunrise and sunset? How do you reverse engineer your life, to create a life that feels so good, your vacations melt right into your schedule? I believe it’s possible when we connect to our emotions, use our imaginations and trust that we can do what we want in life, being real, not performing. 

I also believe in the power of writing down the things that we want in life, and so rather than writing out the profession you want, or the things you want to accomplish, make a list of what you value and how you want to feel: 

I am in a place where the people are supportive and I feel accepted. 
The days are going by peacefully as I hear the sound of the ocean nearby. 
The people I work with are happy to be there and we combine ingenuity with collaboration. 

What's on your list?