(Image by Erik Voake/Getty Images for Hulu)
DR RUTH: LIVING HER PURPOSE
Viktor Frankl said, “The meaning of life is to give life meaning”.
He believed that the search for meaning ´is the primary motivational force in man´, and that we find meaning in three areas – purposeful work or creativity, love and finding courage in the face of adversity.
And for me there is one person who embodied all three of those principals until her death last week at 96, and that was the famously frank sex educator and therapist, Dr Ruth. In fact, Ruth Westheimer never really stopped working because her work was an extension of herself. Both Frankl and Westheimer were Holocaust survivors who turned their deep trauma into a force for good in the world. They certainly started out with Frankl´s third principle of courage and resilience deeply engraved, enabling them to find their purpose through creativity and love.
Dr Ruth was driven ´to make a dent in the world´, simply because she had survived. This drive enabled her to talk about sex at a time when no one was talking about it, let alone a tiny, middle-aged woman, who happened to be a giant in her field who was determined to start uncomfortable conversations because we needed to be having those conversations as a society. She changed the narrative for millions from her very first 15-minute midnight radio broadcast in the 1980s.
She hadn’t known what that dent would look like, but her path took her into studying psychology, and then sex therapy in particular. A job at Planned Parenthood in Harlem forced her into talking frankly about sex, and it was a later lecture to New York broadcasters about the importance of sex education programming that launched her into what she described as ´talking about sex from morning til night´. It didn’t put her off though, because she firmly believed that she could get people talking about it. Conviction gives us the courage we need. And in her case, humour helped her carry it off.
As a career coach, I see many people, both those starting out and those looking for a mid-career change, who aren’t sure exactly where their true path lies either, but it invariably ends up being where they find meaning in their lives. Some know what they are passionate about but don’t know how to convert that into a career, and others need to get to know themselves in order to find their niche. I am convinced that self discovery or self awareness are key to finding fulfilment in work and life.
If you are looking for your career path or want to create meaningful change in your life, contact me at 076 778 2787 for a free 30-minute exploratory session.
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