Most likely, living in North America, you were raised to believe that you must study hard at school so you can get good grades. These good grades will get you into a job or further studies leading to a potentially better job, so you can live with financial stability, pay your bills and mortgage, purchase a nice car, and go on vacations from time to time.
The above scenario is the gold standard for living that society bequeaths us. The American Dream embodies the ideal that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative. It doesn’t necessarily have much to do with personal fulfillment.
Owning a nice house, car, and clothes has nothing to do with the inner satisfaction that comes from a sense of personal fulfillment. Indeed, many people have achieved all those material accomplishments and yet they feel miserable and empty on the inside, with a restlessness and a feeling of dissatisfaction that they cannot quite identify.
Personal fulfillment, on the other hand, while unique to each person, is much more to do with reaching your own innate potential and living up to your capabilities.
Personal fulfillment has more to do with an inner state of satisfaction and contentment, than it has to do with the material successes that the world promises us.
Webster’s Dictionary defines fulfillment as,
“The achievement of something desired, promised, or predicted”
Your Dictionary defines self-fulfillment as,
“The ability to make yourself happy and complete through your own efforts”
Webster’s New World College Dictionary defines self-fulfillment as,
“Fulfillment of one’s aspirations, hopes, etc. through one’s own efforts”
So, how do you figure out what personal fulfilment looks like to you?
As mentioned, it looks very different for each person. One unusual example, based on a true story, is of a homeless gentleman, named Martin, who led a very simple life, slept on the streets, and yet did not consider himself homeless.
He fed the pigeons, went to a church service in the morning, and then washed in the church restroom, walked to the café for a drink of coffee each morning, sat in the park, then read a book in the library.
Then he would go shopping for food and return “home” to his resting place on the streets. Now this elderly man, when asked what made him happy said, “Rain makes me happy. Feeding my pigeons makes me happy, reading makes me happy.” He said he did not consider himself homeless, and he was happy because he had “the intellectual capacity to understand how to be happy.”
He was by no means a picture of success, according to society’s values, and yet he had found true happiness. He did not have fame, fortune, not even family, or friends, but he had a priceless gift that all the riches and successes in the world cannot necessarily buy, the gift of inner peace and happiness.
Fulfillment is a personal thing. A general feeling of inner peace and contentment can mean different things to different people.
So chase your goals, shoot for the stars, and reach your inner potential. Whether it is to grow an amazing business, a career that you love, a path of service to others, to be a great parent, or an Olympic champion.
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