Recently, I met with an academic professor to discuss their program. They are expanding as a means to stay relevant in a global economy. They are integrating technology into their program at an accelerated rate. They have a specific emphasis in the major that focuses on social media. In short, they are seeking to remain relevant in education and in the professional world. They are making significant changes so that they continue to be relevant to students.
Meeting with this professor led me to reflect on relevance. Businesses, individuals, social media influencers, state organizations, and more all desire to stay professionally relevant. They want to stay current with global changes. If you don’t adapt, you die in some markets.
The relevance is a desire to stay current with external changes in the job market and in society. The spark of changing to be relevant is often from without the individual, yet I wonder if there is a way to integrate an inner sense of relevance. Perhaps some of the following questions speak to the need to reflecting on your intrinsic sense of relevance:
-Is my work still important to me?
-Do I care about what I do each day?
-Do I leave work feeling that my work and time was relevant to my inner sense of meaning in life?
-Is my work relevant to my life purpose?
-What changes do I need to make to my life so that I better align my time with my meaning?
All of these questions focus on your inner sense of meaning. How we choose to live our lives does not always align with what we value most. We are sometimes caught in a spell or a trance. We do the same things each day. We strive to live life the “right” way. We may follow cultural scripts as the pattern of our lives without thinking deeply about them. Seeking to be professionally relevant may just be the new and most fashionable “trance” if it ignores your sense of personal relevance and meaning.
In the end, I am encouraging you to focus on societal needs as a way to stay relevant AND to focus on your inner relevance and meaning. Regularly giving yourself the time you need to consider if you are still on a path that matters to you may be what you need to continue to feel energized and invigorated in your career and life.
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