The Big LIE I Realized About Women And Careers
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
154.09027
Summary
Why do we feel the need to find our purpose through our careers? Why do we need to go outside of our homes in order to fulfill our purpose and fulfill our calling as a parent? What does it mean to be a good family member and a good community member? In this episode, I talk about the careerification of purpose and why I think this is a mistake.
Transcript
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hello classic crew and welcome to today's video where we're going to be talking about
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why we feel like we need to find our purpose through our careers
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so if you are new to my channel here we talk about traditional values and classic living and
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i've started a series on my channel where i just kind of share my thoughts on things that i've been
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pondering lately and things that have been bothering me or things that have been affecting me
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and i want to talk about them openly and honestly with you guys and just start a conversation so i'm
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not even really here to change minds that's really not the point of this i'm not trying to get anyone
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to agree with me i just want to start a conversation and be able to do that in this space and that's
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something i do love about the classically abby community is that we can all chat about these
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things even though in a lot of different spaces on the internet you might not be able to chat about
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them openly here we can so today i want to focus on the careerification of purpose my husband actually
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came up with that phrase because we were chatting about this together so if you aren't already
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subscribed to my channel make sure to hit that subscribe button and hit that notification bell
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so you can get notified of all my new videos and if you aren't already following me on my sub stack
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make sure you head over there it's classicallyabby.substack.com and you'll get access to a ton
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of exclusive content including my book club and my exclusive podcast now let's get into today's video
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so something i've been thinking a lot about lately is this idea that we need to find our purpose we feel
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like we need to find our purpose in a big way that a lot of us feel like we have this mission that can
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only be accomplished if we're quote unquote changing the world and a lot of that also means that you
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have to go outside of your home have a big career do something really important in order to show that
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you have meaning and fulfill your purpose and i think that this is a mistake this is something i've been
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grappling with myself this journey of motherhood this journey of you know becoming somebody who loves
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being at home and loves being part of my community the faith family community aspect of kind of what i
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talk about on my channel all the time you know i i grew up thinking that i needed to make a difference
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now that in and of itself isn't a bad thing the idea of making a difference in the world but what does
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make a difference really mean i think that there's this misperception and one that i definitely had
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i 100 had it that i needed to make a difference by changing the world in a big way and so my purpose
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needed to be something big and huge and outside of my home outside of my family outside of my community
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i needed to do something big huge even in order to make a mark on the world and that would be
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my purpose that would be me finding meaning and finding my mission it puts a lot of pressure on us
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to do something that takes so much and so few of us can accomplish and the big problem with this kind
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of thinking is that every person does make a difference but it might not be a public facing
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difference it might not be something that's huge and that everyone sees it might be just the difference
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of you being a good family member a good community member i have really discovered this idea that
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i want to find my purpose and my mission in a small way and that means at home and in my community
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you know what i do on my channel i love it and i do love that i feel like i'm making a difference
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but if that were my only goal i would be neglecting the things that make my channel what it is which is
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my faith my family and my values if i were to focus all of my energy on the mission of my channel
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and ignore the mission that might seem small but is actually much grander like what would it what would
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my channel even be about you know i'd be making a difference when i can't even practice it at home for
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myself something that stands out to me a lot is this idea that if every single person
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viewed their mission as being smaller in the sense of it's more contained because it's more within
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your direct circle we were all trying to be good parents we were all trying to be good siblings we
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were all trying to be good family members we were all trying to be good community members
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how many issues would be solved in our society it's funny to think about right that like if
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every single person focused on what we kind of think of as like small things not huge you know
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mission finding my mission through my career finding my mission outside of the home if everyone focused
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it at home how much less would we have to do as a society for things to actually be good
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we'd have good parents we'd have children raised in good homes and that is the foundation of everything
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right we know statistically that you know good communities start at home and children who are
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raised in a in a strong home have a good basis to grow so why do we feel like we need to find
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mission and purpose in a bigger way or even if it's not like huge even if it's not like public facing
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it's still outside of the home in your career this is where Jacob came up with the phrase
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careerification of purpose the idea that you need to find your purpose and your purpose can't just be
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being a dad being a mom having a job that provides for your family it has to be my purpose is my job
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and the other stuff will come later like the other stuff is fine the other stuff will figure itself
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out we literally give people a pass to be worse parents or worse community members if we feel like
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their mission outside of the home is important enough which is so backwards if you think about it
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it it's backwards to think that the important thing is what's going on out there and not here
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with your family and that thing that's going to provide your children with a really good strong
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foundation i think men and women are encouraged nowadays to find their mission and their purpose
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in the workplace and i want to understand why and i think a big part of the reason is that we are
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trying to distinguish ourselves as individuals as opposed to knowing our worth within a context of other
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people i'm thinking this through now i've been reading a lot of books on this kind of topic
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of this rise of individualism but none of us are people within a vacuum we are all people within context
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of those around us you know i'm my mom's daughter i'm jacob's wife i'm this person's friend that's not
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all that i am but all of those things together are a big part of what defines me so why do we need to
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find our mission in the workplace as opposed to at home and with our family and with our community
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because in the workplace you get to be an individual you get to say i'm important because i did this
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as opposed to i'm important because i gave this to my daughter or i'm important because i helped the
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community grow i am important in the context of my role to others not i'm important because look at me
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you know it's a very modern understanding of the world to view ourselves in a vacuum separate from
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other people but it's not necessarily a good thing i don't think it is i mean when we think about it
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what's engraved on our tombstones it's not employee of the month 2020 it's it's mother wife daughter
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it's who we are in the context of other people so maybe we shouldn't be finding our mission and our
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purpose outside of our families and outside of our communities we can love what we do and we can
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additionally find a purpose through our work but if that is more the focus then a smaller mission which
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has greater impact that of family member that of wife that of daughter i think that's more important
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i don't want to be somebody who feels like my mission has to be greater than the people i take care of
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you know mission doesn't have to be world changing in the sense that we are literally changing the
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world i think i mentioned this in another video but there's something in judaism where it says
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every life is like a world so when you are a mother or you're married or you're a daughter
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your mission to change the world can be being a strong influence on the people around you
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and that that's okay that can be enough we are enough even if it's only a small circle
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even if it's not out there even if it's not me me my individual accomplishments in the workplace
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it's okay to be understood in the context of others so that's what i've been thinking about
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let me know your thoughts in the comments i i'm curious to know what you guys think about this topic
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i hope you guys enjoyed today's video let me know in the comments what you think and if you aren't
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already subscribed to my channel make sure to do so now if you aren't already subscribed to my substack
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make sure to head over to classicallyabbey.substack.com and if you'd like to follow me on social media
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it's at classicallyabbey absolutely everywhere thank you so much for watching and i'll see you guys in my