I like to play Trivial Pursuit. The board game where you have to answer questions of varying difficulty and sometimes triviality from six categories and get a piece of cake in your empty round knowledge bank (circular mover) for every correct answer. The game in which my lack of geography knowledge is shown up with no mercy (but that’s another topic). And I’ll venture a connection now: For me, life is somewhat comparable to this: A well-rounded, full life is made up of different areas, different colors, strengths and weaknesses, and I fill these areas with tasks that come unasked and those that match my interests.
And I have to quote Wilhelm Schmid (German philosopher), who put it so aptly: “Today, and still, work is very strongly identified with gainful employment, but that is certainly a mistake. I would prefer to speak of life work in order to summarize all work that has to do with life.”
And I also like this game so much because I can often get interested in very trivial things.
For example, I am really fascinated by the idea that the oldest color in the world was pink. And that this color was assigned to boys until 1940. And I wonder how a girl who was born in, say, 1928 would feel if she had to wear this “boy’s color” (and must think it’s great, assuming that all girls love this color).
And it still fascinates me to this day that Google had an answer to a mother’s question “how do dinosaurs do” and – here it comes – nobody wondered how Google could know this (when for scientists it is more a statement of probability than exact knowledge).
But there are also hard questions: How do we be a good parent? What do we believe in? Why is the world the way it is? And the questions never stop. You can find it either way. Personally, I find it a relief. Because as long as you still get questions, you have the chance to find an answer. Otherwise, you’re already out of the game.
And that is my answer to the question: What now?
I fill my circular mover with very different work, the focus of which changes. Because I am convinced that we as humans have the task of achieving less of everything, not more, but that we can place more value on quality, on content, on sustainability. Quality in manufacturing processes, in materials, meaningful relationships, sustainable use of the resources available to us. We find role models all over the world who have found this lifestyle for themselves and can see how some people live healthier and happier lives.
For me, this is the end of the question of my future career path and I am now concentrating again on answering the questions from the individual areas of knowledge, as in the game. I very much hope that reading about this process has been enjoyable and useful.
That would be the right answer.
Just a thought
Karin