A question that haunts many people is, “What should I do with my life?” People are searching for a purpose. They’re trying to find a passion so they can follow it. One of those people is Oliver, who would like to go by the pen name Oliver D. Place. Those Stories asked him to change his pen name, but that didn’t happen.
Oliver doesn’t know what to do with his life, and this search haunts him and many friends and acquaintances. He wanders the world, going from coffee shops to parks to bars, waiting for a strike of inspiration.
I agreed to get coffee with Oliver about once every three months. I asked him not to tell the barista his name was Oliver D. Place, but he always did, and the barista never laughed.
As we sat at on coffee shop, Oliver stated, “I just don’t know what to do with my life.”
“What have you tried recently?” I asked
“I tried flipping through books and looking for something to pop out. I watched a lot of videos on careers. I wandered Colfax Avenue, looking in storefronts to see if any of them looked like a passion I would want to pursue. I asked Ai what I should do with my life.
“What did Ai say?”
“Well, I told it I had a pen name, Oliver D. Place.”
“I know the name,” I replied.
“It suggested I needed to do something rather than just sit around. Given that I had a pen name, I thought I might try writing.”
“What would you write about?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been going to coffee shops and bookstores, trying to figure that out.”
“Well, you should either write what you know or write what you want to find out.”
“Should I write about how I’m searching for my purpose?”
“Yes,” I said through gritted teeth.
Oliver D. Place will start trying out different jobs and careers and reporting back to us at Those Stories about why each job is a bad fit for him. I don’t see this working, but it’s worth a shot. I’m sorry to the people whose lives Oliver is about to disrupt. However, if he can find an answer to the question, he might lose that pen name.