After the interview with Dr. Id, I walked away with one clear, new understanding: In our modern world, a fixed, lifelong identity is not necessarily a constant. 

The same theme is reflected in the “making meaning” posts; ”meaning” is not a constant thread through our lives, but a shifting changing thing, which often requires our active participation.

Similar shifting patterns are  showing up in the workplace - previously stable job expectations of a 20-40 year worklife with one company are eroding, replaced by short term project-teams, consultants and temp workers.

Relationships are changing the same way; instead of a pairing expected to last for a lifetime, or even decades, “long term relationships” are measured in years, and family units have drastically changed. 

A less obvious reflection of this idea is in plate-spinning productivity — the stress on focus isn’t not on a single, constant goal (a job, family, hobbies, a book) but on balancing and maintaining a shifting table of projects and interests.

All of this flies in the face of a major cultural expectation: that we should have a single defining purpose or goal in our life, that we need to find ourselves once, and then be done with it.

 I’ve never quite bought that idea; I’ve always felt we each fill many purposes and places in our lives, some of them simply by happenstance, some of our own making, and some which seem fated (whether by some holy power or unavoidable circumstance doesn’t really matter).  Each circumstance, each situation requires that we “find ourselves” in a new way.

I believe this…  and yet, I’m thrown every time my life reinvents itself. In part, this is because my belief isn’t really grounded in our culture, but it’s also because I don’t have any real tools to keep me stable through the changes.

If our jobs, relationships, sense of meaning, and over all identity is not a constant -  we need to find new ways of finding some sort of personal stability, some new constant.

Over time, I’d like to explore some of the ways we can better deal with these changes, find a constant core to who we are, an identity that makes sense and sustains us throughout the shifting territory.

Have you got any suggestions? Any tricks or tips on how you discovered, invented, or found a “self” which carries you through the most turbulent times? I’m not quite sure where this idea will lead, just that it’s bound to be somewhere interesting. __________________________________

MindTweak: There’s something immensely amusing about an psuedo-anonymous blogger writing about identity, don’t you think?
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I used to think that I need a central sense of purpose or meaning in my life before I could set meaningful, long term goals. After my recent foray into future success goals, I think the opposite is true:

Setting intuitive, long term goals can reveal important clues to what you find meaningful, and may even help you discover a deeper sense of purpose over all.

How do you set intuitive goals? It’s not as hard as it might sound.

Remember the “gotta get” goals meme? It’s a lot my approach to that.

Fire up your imagination, and project yourself into a blissful, satisfied and successful future. Look around. What do you see? What things around you, in that future, make you smile? What things make you feel satisfied?

What you see (or don’t see) will probably vary at different times, and there’s no pressure here. No worries about what is possible, or what you think you want, or what you think you should want. Just calmly, quietly let the image of a satisfied future develop around you.

Come back to the now, and bring those images back with you.

Write down what you visualized in that future.

Tada. Intuitive Goals! These goals aren’t necessarily things you need to plan to work on achieving, or even that you expect to achieve. They are just how you intuitively imagine success in your own life.

So, what meaning does that reveal?
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