We live in an age and era where the focus on personal mission and fulfillment is incredibly strong—at least in our Western culture. So many of us adults have been raised to feel like we need to expand, contribute, be all that we can be, and generally do anything and everything besides sitting back and taking life easy. As single parents, we can easily get swept up in this idea of “fulfillment”—are our lives fulfilling enough? Are we doing all that we should be? Have we got ourselves off track and lost our sense of purpose? Where does fulfillment fit into the life of a single parent?
I have found, for me, the most important step is to define what fulfillment even means to ME—not as it relates to what magazine articles, Dr. Phil, or Oprah tell me that I should be doing—but what it is that I want out of my life, or what I can do that makes me feel as though my life and efforts are valuable and worthwhile. It can be incredibly hard to silence all those outside voices and forces in order to listen to one’s own inner voice—but we have to know our own hearts and minds in order to live a fulfilling life.
The other issue that I wrestle with is “timing and patience”—it seems that we live in a time where we have been raised to think that we should get immediate results from our efforts. We send out an e-mail, we want instantaneous response; we have so much technology at our fingertips and things happen so quickly, it can be hard for us to wait for rewarding and fulfilling life experiences. As single parents, it can be easy to get so weighted down in the day-to-day details that it feels as though our lives are slipping past. In fact, it may just be that we have things we need to take care of today and that other opportunities will come our way in the future—we just need to remain patient and trust in the timing of things.
I do believe that we can be fulfilled as single parents, it just might be an ongoing process of determining exactly what that means to us as an individual, and having the patience and devotion to continue working on it as we raise our families and meet the daily demands.
Also: Dealing with the “Not Enough” Feelings