“The uncomfortable truth is that, more than likely, no one is worrying about what makes you unique. Nobody is dedicated to introducing you to yourself, to helping you get curious about and build a really deep relationship with you at your best. School doesn’t do it: schools want to make sure that everybody learns what everybody is supposed to learn. Work doesn’t do it: work is most concerned about performance, about what needs to get done. Everybody in your life, since childhood, has had expectations and demands that don’t necessarily have any direct connection to you discovering the unique things you love and building a life around them.

Of course, your parents want you to be happy. But if you told them that living in your van and selling burritos to hungry surfers is what makes you happy, I think they’d start pointing to alternative, more “successful” paths.

What no one is doing is starting with you, listening to you, paying attention to what you instinctively pay attention to, and giving you methods and techniques to then apply these unique gifts in the world. Which is a problem for you since, as Steve Jobs said in his famous Stanford commencement address, “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.

Think back for a moment on that someone you know who lived a full life. You get the sense, don’t you, that they were on to something. That they had somehow cut through all the noise, and tuned themselves into a signal only they could hear. And they didn’t do this in spite of their work. Rather, they seemed to be doing it through their work. Their loves and their work were inextricably linked.

In their telling, “work” does not simply mean “job.” It is not merely manual or knowledge labor. Instead, “work” is anything of value they created for someone else.

“So ask yourself, “What do I find myself instinctively raising my hand for?” Left entirely to your own devices, which activities or situations seem to pull you toward them? Block out all the other voices and demands in your world, and see what your answers are. No matter the answers, they’ll be meaningful.

Honor yourself by listening to them.

Your life should be an ongoing search for love. Sometimes high performance will flow from your love, and sometimes it won’t. But in all cases, more love in your life means a fuller life.

My suggestion is to explore thinking differently about the true nature of your career. I believe we all have only one career. It’s a career that spans and integrates work, relationships, and all parts of our lives. This career is living a mindful life.