As you may know, I've been working as a psychologist since the 1990s.
In the past few years in this city, we've enjoyed unparalleled prosperity.
All the same, people come to me with concerns about the future, or should I say, their future.
One trend I've noticed is an increase in clients who, at least on paper, lead ideal lives, yet worry that they're not fulfilling themselves, however elusive that might be.
Let me give you an example.
A woman in her late 20s came to me a month or so ago.
She's an HR manager for a big company.
She lives in a nice part of town, and she's been engaged for nine months.
Her last holiday was to Tibet, and she's just resumed sailing.
In good health, she appeared not to be suffering from clinical depression.
Nevertheless, she felt the world owed her more.
I questioned her about her career choice and life partner.
Were they really right for her?
In both cases, the answer was yes.
I asked if she spent time with her family.
Indeed, and everyone got along fine.
I queried her on her friends.
She had some from college and some more from work.
I asked if she'd ever done any voluntary work.
Again, yes was her reply.
After graduation, she'd spent two months at an orphanage in Nepal before trekking in the Himalayas.
In her current life, however, she felt she didn't have time to volunteer, what with work, her fiancé, sailing and a love of travel.
She hopes to go to Argentina if she can inveigle her boss into allowing her an extra week's leave.
I asked my client what she thought self-fulfillment might be, but she couldn't put a finger on it.
I saw her three times and suggested she read Nelson Mandela's autobiography, but she didn't keep her fourth appointment.
So why did I suggest Mandela's book?
I could equally have directed her toward the writing of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, or a philosopher like Immanuel Kant, none of whom seemed aggrieved about missing opportunities for self-fulfillment or trips to Tierra del Fuego, and two of whom gave meaning to their lives through decades of self-sacrifice.
That is, they did what they had to do.
As do people who live just a two-hour drive from here, I mean those in rural areas or towns that are virtually ghost towns, not to mention the billions in the developing world.
If they do get through school, they don't leave declaring, Now I must do what I love doing.
Even my mother did what she had to do.
Originally from Puerto Rico, she brought up her children on her own, while working three jobs.
She considered it more important to put us through college than to go herself, even though she was clever enough.
Likewise, she nursed her sister with cancer and cooked meals for elderly neighbors.
I'm not saying I was raised by a saint, but in mature people, the notion of self-fulfillment seldom arises.
Let's return to Martin Luther King, who believed there are three dimensions to our lives, length, breadth and height.
Length refers to self-love, and breadth to the community and care of others.
For some of us, especially the young, height may be difficult to accept or to find.
For King, it was unequivocally God, although the transcendent doesn't have to be a religious experience.
It could translate roughly as being part of something greater than oneself.
It could be an ideal, like equality or justice.
The reason height may be hard for the me generation to come to grips with is that it requires a disciplined willingness to submerge one's own desires.
In a world of instant gratification, that's a big ask.
In my own work as a psychologist, I've now questioned my years of guiding clients towards the do-what-you-love principle.
It may be elitist, denigrating work that is done not from love, like my mother's dawn shift in a bakery, which no amount of free doughnuts could sweeten.
I don't believe gifts come from God, so it's our duty not to squander them, but I am persuaded that focusing one's talents on things outside oneself is more important than constant self-improvement.
Of course, it's wonderful to do what we like, particularly when we're good at it, but from time to time, we should also do what we hate, for the benefit of others.
If this is a bitter pill to swallow, relish the bitterness.
There lies your self-fulfillment.
