Career-Oriented vs. Life-Oriented

Hi everyone! Recently, I attended a networking event for the first time in years. To be quite honest, I've never enjoyed attending these types of events because they tend to be very one-dimensional. For instance, the most frequently asked question at any networking event is, “What do you do for work?” I've found that people are so eager to say:

“I’m the director of ...."

“I’m an executive for ....”

“I’m an entrepreneur”.

But when I ask, “What do you do outside of work?”, more often than not there is dead silence and things get awkward.

Maybe I’m weird in that I’m not very career-oriented and a lot of people mistake that for a lack of ambition. But I realized at a young age that I would much rather be life-oriented than career-oriented and that’s where my ambition lies.

Some may read this and say, "Well perhaps you're not doing something you really love." But even if I was, I would still feel the same. Why? Because I've always been a curious person. Having explored so many parts of the world, attended a multitude of events, taken up dozens of hobbies, read hundreds of books, and spoken with countless people, I've come to appreciate just how much there is to discover and explore in this life.

While work is important and necessary for most of us to make a living, it's not the only thing that matters or that makes me happy. That is why I don’t define myself by my place of employment, my job title, or my salary. It's not that I don't value these things, but they are only a small portion of my overall life experience.

Personally, I don't think I will look back on my life and say, "I'm so happy that I dedicated my entire life to becoming the top performing employee at work or to creating the biggest company in the world." Honestly, I think I would be rather sad and regretful if that's all I did! Instead, I would want to say, "I used up the time I had on this Earth to discover as many places, to seek out as many experiences, and connect with as many people as I possibly could." To me, that's a life well lived.

With gratitude,

Amin

Attending a human rights training at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva in 2015. I signed up for it on a whim. No foreign relations education or experience. Just something that peaked my interested at the time.