Buddha’s last words were:

Decay is inherent in all things: be sure to strive with clarity of mind (for nirvana).

Whether that was how he intended his final utterance to be punctuated is outside the scope of this post.  However, it does inform the DinnerGrrls.org approach; we assume that in order to achieve career nirvana, your mind must be clear and free from outside noise.  What this suggests is that you must know yourself and have intention awareness prior to embarking on a journey towards career bliss.

In the early stages of my career, I motored along in the general direction of upper management.  It seemed like the thing for a lifelong overachiever with a Yale degree to do.  I assumed that my unhappiness was a function of various outside forces conspiring against me:  the system, the glass ceiling, jealous haters, et cetera.  It did not occur to me that upper management might not be my authentic career bliss.  It did not occur to me that my unhappiness was a function of currents within me.

This is where getting together with other humans to share career war stories and talk about the future is immensely valuable.  Some of the happy side-effects of regularly chatting with like-minded folks regarding your hopes and dreams include

• You can hear — and feel — how your dreams sound as you utter them
• You’re forced to discuss things with a disinterested party (our friends and family often have their own vested interests — no matter how benevolent — in seeing us achieve a certain sort of career path)
• You can get ideas from other people regarding their goals, a wonderful reminder of all the diverse ways in which talents and interests can bear fruit in a market economy

This is the unsecret agenda of DinnerGrrls.org:  to put like-minded, thoughtful folks in a room so that they can tawk amongst themselves about their lives, their ambitions, their challenges, and their bliss.

It was after many years of careful consideration, fueled in no small way by my DinnerGrrls.org 1.0 experiences, that I finally had the clarity of mind regarding what would bring me (not my parents; not my ego) deep joy, career-wise.  And it’s ironic that now that I’m no longer endlessly wandering towards upper management, it has simply arrived.

Before you can achieve career nirvana, you have to be clear-minded about what that looks like for the authentic you.  And that means, you have to meet that authentic you, unbound by the wishes and desires of outside forces.

Have you met that person?  Do you know the real you?