Untitled: But Not in a Pretentious Way is a SoulPancake Exclusive by Elizabeth Alinikoff
If 15 years ago someone had told me the majority of my income would be from working in an office, I would have laughed in their face. If that same someone had specified my daily would consist of 10 digit decimals, carhartt, and incorporating Haiku poetry into the socially awkward world of science – I would have probably cried for a minute and then gone out for soy milk and one large face tattoo. But somehow here I am, glaring at the Scheduling Assistant, using Outlook clip art as a chaser for painful reality, and crafting sad periodic table jokes…that’s so Boron.
Being honest with the fact I’m not fulfilling my purpose has gnawed me into submission. I’m aware it’s difficult to fulfill something you have yet to identify, but I’m pretty sure whatever it is has nothing to do with being the copy machine savant. Though my purpose may remain hidden,it still loiters: waiting to slip through. It whispers as I try to sleep, terrorizing my thoughts, reminding me to buy more colored sharpies. I promise that one day, it will permanently be set free. I will become that person who has the courage to own up to their truth and potential – only feeding on hand-selected deliciousness. When in reality, sometimes it’s just easier to shut it up with whatever randomness I find lying around. Ikea, the drama at work, and Ryan Gosling are excellent for this. My purpose may seem aloof, but I assure you it has the heart of Columbo. The truth eventually seeps out, escaping into the ether.
I believe each person has their own constellation, their own design of what they were meant for. Recently I was told that to discover my purpose, I must first discern my passion. To pinpoint passion, I should identify when I first felt passionate about something I did or completed as a child. After 5 minutes of being confused as to why the exercise was taking 5 long minutes, I decided ‘laundry’ and ‘not strangling the next customer asking me to throw away her half-full venti-latte’ would suffice for the moment. Things take time. For me defining specific passion and over-arching purpose are two of those things.
Contemplating childhood, I became focused on the theme of creativity. It holds such power over us as children, yet we remain completely unaware. We are free of inhibition, becoming designers of enchantment, authors of stories, and inventors of expression. It’s an automatic byproduct of simply being born, like an Indian adventure and the bathroom.
Looking back, I’m amazed how the giant billboard signs along the path to enlightenment remained unnoticed. Maybe my 6th grade English paper entitled Goodbye, Good Life should have tipped me off. Why not take the opportunity to share the lovely tale of my parent’s separation, where my delicate world becomes an abyss of evil spells and broken promises. Turns out teachers didn’t just hug me because I wore a lot of hand-me-downs.
I probably thought everything was relative. All parents watch their child choreograph dances to A-Ha’s "Take On Me." Perhaps I needed to hear the exact words, Hey Elizabeth, you are super expressive and artistic. If this was gymnastics – and we were Romania – we would have put you on the Olympic track. I am completely sold on the idea that if everyone had the family of John Travolta, we could have all been superstars.
But here I am, still at my place of employment, enveloped by quarks and the quirky. The girl wearing bright kelly-green pants, sitting above a dry sea of plots and rocks. In between client invoice nightmares and lectures on OSHA’s concerns with respect to the Brazilian Blowout, I answer Halloween party costume questions. I sit back and watch fifty-year old professionals learning to delight in their ability to put on a poorly done Russian accent. Someone emails me an original Haiku. One of the geologists wants to dress up as his alter ego named Lorenzo. Maybe my passion is not totally in hiding. There is proof that things are what you make them, and proof that I understand more about my purpose than I once thought.
How does your passion lead you to your purpose? How are they related?
