Everyone has their own story that they are narrating based on their unique identity. Depending on one's socio-cultural background and environmental development, they will have their own values which have been instilled within them. These values compose the kind of life that they want to live and as they follow their own path and the environment will present obstructions or success to that path. The meaning of a person's life is largely formed by the journey that they perceive they are on. A person's well-being and sense of oneness will be determined by the cohesiveness of their journey.
Identity
The journey is necessarily a process of identity formulation and development. As a child, some things have meaning and as we grow up they either lose or maintain their meaning depending on my development psychologically, socially and culturally. Each of us has a journey of becoming that is shifted by our experiences and the people who influence us through our lives.
Some of our experiences are not in our control and are damaging to us. These negative experiences are trauma and it is important to find a place for those experiences. As bad as these traumatic experiences are, the fundamental resource of time is limited for all of us and our experiences compose who we are. If we are unable to integrate experiences into our story we become fragmented and our sense of self is negatively affected for we lose a sense of unity. See Unity of Self, Meaning and Purpose and Inverting Trauma Tool.
Once we determine who we are and develop a constructive narrative approach to the traumatic past, we now have to learn to integrate ourselves within the world.
Demands of the Job Market and the Economy
Many of us are faced with the problem of how to integrate our personal passions in our lives. The issues most people face today in western culture is consumed by competing on the job market. 'Finding a Job' becomes the predominant focus of many people's identities for which, as an activity is not necessarily a passion they were introduced to as a child. Part of our journey is finding a place for ourselves within the economy that is not limited to working just for a pay check.
For some, that might mean first immigrating to a country where they can get a minimum wage job that pays decently, like Canada. For that individual, their project and journey will consist of multiple steps for them to even have the freedom to do something they are passionate about. See Self-Love and The Project Tool.
Having a sense of autonomy over how we are creating meaning and conducting our lives is very important for our sense of self-efficacy and purpose. If we work at jobs that are meaningless, with no connection to the people or culture within the workplace, we will feel as if life is passing us by.
It does not make sense to work at a job that pays well but destroys a person's sense of purpose. Even if working at a temporary job is a means to another end, we still are spending our precious time with those people, in that place. It is important to feel fulfilled while we are working and if not then simply make efforts to switch jobs and searching until we do find a group that has meaning for us.
Group Support
An important part of our journey is finding the people that support us in developing the part of our identity for which we want to become. From our teenage years onward, we learn and develop a mastery of our social skills. As we surf the social cosmos, we will interact with people who see us in a way that promotes our development to become the future self that we identify with. These supportive relationships are very important to our journey and these people have the potential to be lifelong friends.
For an individual to support someone in becoming a future self that they identify with, that person would have to represent themselves authentically. If someone is not accurately representing themselves to others or representing what they want to become, others will not know the context of the kind of person that you want to become and hence cannot support you in becoming it. See Friendship Tool.
AJ 18.2.18, 14.3.18, 27.3.20
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