Ultimate Blog Challenge - Why do you want to find your Purpose?

Photo by Yosef Futsum on Unsplash

Welcome back to another episode of this month's UBC. I was surprised to see that the most important question 

Why do you want to find your Purpose?

was not being asked until Day 7, but here we go:

As I was saying in the post about my favorite job - being a Mom to my boy - I wasn't necessarily considering it being a job as in chore, but more of a lifestyle and, yes, a purpose. I mean, if you have a baby and a toddler, you're pretty much needed all day long. You'll probably never have a purpose like that again, and when the kid's needs are getting less because they're growing up and becoming independent, you sort of lose purpose, and it's just the way nature works.

Even though you knew this, it'll still somehow hit you and nag on you.

On Day 15 I will talk about a Mom who resents her kids. She claims she gave everything up for them, and they don't even thank her for it. 

While I acknowledge her feelings, I always, always reminded myself over the years, that it was my choice, and I made my bed, and I had to lie in it, and it wasn't fair to blame the kid or the husband or society.

Wait, when did society become part of the deal?

Well, they are not making things easy for Moms. It starts with the fact - and it's hard to believe - that paid maternity leave was only introduced at the federal level on July 1, 2005. It took 60 years to convince parliament, business circles and the Swiss population of the minimalist solution in force today. I say minimalist - you're getting 80% of your regular pay during 14 weeks - full knowing that the U.S. doesn't even offer that to their working mothers. However, our European neighbour countries are way more generous and therefore appreciative.

We notoriously lack affordable daycare spots, and don't get me started on school schedules for kindergarten, elementary and middle school. There are no school lunches as you know them in the U.S. Kids are supposed to go home or to a lunchtime place that is offered for the poor children of working raven mothers.

And when I say "poor kids" I mean poor souls, I'm not talking about financially poor, because these lunches are actually quite pricey because these organizations are privately run.

Then there's 12 weeks of school break, divided into fall, holidays, ski, spring and summer break. The average working person in Switzerland gets four or five weeks of paid vacation, which again, I am aware is really generous compared to the U.S. The challenge is still: who takes care of school children during the remaining seven or eight weeks? 

Part-time positions are rare, and typically they are limited to less challenging jobs.If you were lucky enough to hold a part-time position over all those years, once your kid is old enough to look after themselves, you may go back to full-time and try to catch up, not only on career steps, but also financing your pension fund, which was suffering greatly from not making enough money to even be eligible.

How about the full-time stay-at-home-moms? They are having the hardest time settling back into the working world. Colin's friends' - triplets - Mom is an example. She had a good job in the insurance field up until she had three babies. Of course she was more than busy taking care of them and stopped working. As you can imagine, 15 years is a lifetime in the financial world. Nothing is the way it was back then. She now applies for unchallenging jobs hesitantly and with modest expectations.

Companies - while whining about skills shortage - have no programs for (returning) mothers.

So this is my beef with society.

I should do something about it. Maybe this could be my new purpose: to convince corporate organizations to create some sort of re-entry classes. Building up people's self-confidence and computer skills. 

Back to the question, why did I even chose this topic? Why do I feel the need to find new purpose? Just because for once, my load is slightly going back, I have to immediately fill the gap? Can't I just kick back and enjoy my freedom? Why does the thought of that make me feel guilty? 

Is this a generation thing? Just the other day I was watching an experiment on TV. People from four generations were invited to answer some questions. Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials and Generation Z. It was interesting to visually see how they perceived things. Each generation was wearing a different color T-Shirt, and after they decided on how to answer a question, they would physically get over to a circle for yes or no. Sometimes the yes circle was full of member of all four generations, and sometimes it was clearly the older people or the youngsters who agreed on an answer.

I belong to X, for which one of the hallmarks is work being an important purpose in life. So true! I think I should watch and learn from Gen Z: It is the love of life and the maximization of experiences that drives them, not fixed structures and processes.

Just relax and enjoy. I think it would be good for me to work on this, whether it can be considered a purpose or not. And the irony is not lost on me. I would have to work on taking it easier.

What do you think? Do I need a new purpose? is enjoying life even a purpose?

What is your purpose, and are you happy with it?