My mission is to be of meaningful help to my people. But who are “my people?”

What is your mission?

by: Brooke Allen (Q4Colleges.com)

My personal mission is to be of meaningful help to my people.

Who are “my people” exactly? If I were Armenian I might consider my people to be Armenians or if I were a lesbian then they might be lesbians.

I am neither of those.

I’m a 59-year-old Caucasian male with a mostly useless master’s degree.

And my people are over-educated Westerners.

This mission came to me after I’d written an article for Science Careers about hiring technical people. I became friends with the editor, Jim Austin, and one day (after a few drinks) we discussed the importance of having a mission.

My business has a mission.

But what about me?

The house was paid for and the kids were off to college, now what?

Jim and I were both struck by the fact that in primitive hunter-gatherer societies a young person can, by age 14, be in complete command of everything they need to know to earn a living, find a mate, contribute to a community, and have a fulfilling life.

But, here in the U. S. A., many college grads seem to be lost.

What is missing?

Please give me your thoughts.