Reality Check: The Satisfaction of Being Useful

Dr. Glasser’s book, “Take Charge of Your Life” is subtitled, “How to get what you need with choice theory psychology.” In it, we are encouraged to make our choices deliberately and to evaluate the results.
We have to make choices every day, and it’s not always obvious what we should choose. What’s best? Sometimes none of the options look good.
Often, we don’t know for sure what will happen when we choose one thing over another. There can also be times when we may not have the courage or the energy to make a difficult choice.
A part of the choice theory process that’s often useful is self-evaluation. I think of it as the, “How is that working for you?” question. It’s a great question, but we still need to take care when answering. Why? Because sometimes we need to make our way through short-term pain if we want to achieve greater long-term satisfaction.
For example, some people engage in long and difficult training so they can achieve important educational goals and qualifications. Some people work overtime at strenuous jobs to keep their loved ones safe, warm, and fed. You probably have your own examples where you’ve chosen a more difficult path to achieve a better outcome in the long run.
If we ask, “How is this working for me?” at the end of a frustrating 12-hour shift, then the answer may be, “Not great!” That doesn’t mean that it’s time to throw in the towel, though. The answer to a slightly different question, “How is this working for me in the big picture?” may be quite different than, “How is this working for me at the present moment?”
If you’re stuck in a state of mind where you feel you’re not making progress, then you might try asking yourself an additional question. “Is what I am doing useful?” Through usefulness, we can bring meaning and satisfaction into our lives, and we don’t need anyone else’s cooperation to do it.
One way is through work. There’s a built-in usefulness that comes with work, as you are not likely to be paid unless that work has value to someone. Whether it’s hard work or easy, high-paying or not-so-much, at the end of a workday, you have done something useful.
But maybe you’re not employed, Maybe you are retired, discouraged, inexperienced, or have some barrier that would seem to make working impossible. How do you make yourself useful?
My suggestion is to take a broad view of usefulness and work toward it. There are many ways to serve, to be useful. Whenever we add value to something, we are being useful. When we make a meal, clean a space, plant a seed, encourage a friend, create something beautiful, we are being useful.
If you’ve been feeling insignificant, bored, sad, and find that nothing captures your interest, take a look at how you can be useful.
As you go through your day, task after task, ask yourself, “Is what I am about to do useful?” You may find that you are spending a lot of time on activities that are essentially not useful, for you or for anyone else. Mind you, it’s entirely up to you to evaluate what is useful or not. However, simply asking the question, “Is this useful?” can bring a new perspective to how we spend our time.
Do you find the question of usefulness helpful for making choices?

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