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难度：四级

Q:

I graduated from university a year ago and, while I have settled into a postgrad job that I am OK with, I have felt a deep sense of guilt and frustration at not having an answer to the big question: what do you want to do with your life?

There remains a deep-seated belief that to be truly happy, I need to find my "thing".As a pessimistic and anxious person, I find flaws with most career paths in terms of their alignment with the missing "thing" I'm looking for.

How do I reconcile the confusion with the inner child who expected more from myself?

A:

Here are some things I know about searching for your thing:

First, it doesn't need to be in an office, or even a job.In fact, the odds are pretty stacked against finding that the thing that gives us identity and fun will also happen to be one of the ways of making money that our market has come up with.Many things can be your purpose outside what you do for money.

The second is that hunting for it with too-high standards is a good way to miss it, or at least, to fail to cultivate it.Opportunities for the thing you're looking for are whooshing by on all sides, but you don't grab on to them because they don't look as perfect as the dream.

When you first encounter your thing, whatever it is, it won't necessarily arrive fully developed.You'll have to commit to it, be patient with it, work on the skills it demands, suffer knockbacks, accept that your relationship with it will ebb and flow.

If you chase after a version of "your thing" that will deliver you instantly and effortlessly from the feeling of dissatisfaction with life, you may wait a long time.

The third is — if you do want "your thing" to be a job, you have a relatively short window right now to set yourself up.Time isn't infinite.A few "for now" jobs in a row can punt you into an age and qualification bracket that make it much more difficult to realise an eventual career passion.

So if you want "your thing" to be a job, you have to hustle now.Try things out, don't wait for them to find you.Stay in touch with the goal even when it's hard and boring and you'd rather the anaesthetic slump of not.

Try to make decisions on behalf of your future selves, not just the you you are right now.What will you want life to look like at 30?At 50?Keeping options open for those future versions of you can be a really motivating way to keep your pedal to the metal.