The Dharma Dabbler

A soul’s work is never done.

What’s Your Darma?

“What’s your dharma?” My new friend, who happens to be a life coach, asked me this question as we talked in person for the first time. We had gotten to know each other through our writing, and had only talked online up until then.

I hemmed and hawed as I tried to answer her question, which I haven’t been asked since I left my yoga practice to become an alternative health care provider, nor since I left that practice to try my hand at becoming an author.

“Don’t worry; it will come to you if you keep working toward it,” she reassured me, as any good coach would.

And, as a good client would, I answered, “Okay, thank you.”

Except, we weren’t client/coach. We were getting to know each other as peers. I felt a weird twisting sensation in my belly. It felt like one of those times I’ve gotten together with a new friend only to be pitched her exclusive line (ahem, pyramid scheme) of essential oils.

Still, invited or not, after this conversation, my mind reeled with discomfort, insecurity, and uncertainty: Am I still not living my dharma? Do I still not reflect my truest self in the world? Do I look incomplete in some way? And what is this obsession with finding our dharma?

Our Soul’s Work

“Oh, you mentors and your passions. Your purposes, your meanings-of-life. So basic.”

“Soul,” Pixar

In Hinduism and Buddhism, “Dharma” loosely translates to a great Truth (with that capital T). While some might translate it to mean a great law, dictate, or even a commandment, Dharma is actually about seeking the true nature of our existence and the existence of all living beings in the cosmos. It is about recognizing and respecting our interconnectedness and interrelatedness with all that exists in the universe.

But when dharma is used in a conversation such as the one between my friend and me (and it is lowercase) it means: “What is your purpose?” In the spiritual and self-help world, asking someone what their dharma is is akin to asking, “What do you want to be/do for a living?”

Our dharma is understood today and in most spiritual circles as that one thing that we, as eternal souls, are here to accomplish. It’s our soul’s duty, our mission, our greatest work.

I want to emphasize that last part: our dharma is our soul’s work. Not our soul’s vocation. Not our soul’s play. Not our soul’s hobby.

In our culture, we understand the concept of “work” and differentiate it from play or hobby. We know the words that revolve around work, too: obligation, pressure, guilt, duty, stress, chore, expectation.

So, when the word dharma is interpreted to mean the “work of the soul,” it infers these things about the life of a soul.

Not finding one’s dharma before we die is one of the greatest fears of many in the spiritual community. Take for instance this quote:

“I’m afraid that I’ll die without having lived fully…afraid that I may be missing some magnificent possibility.”

— “The Greatest Work of Your Life: A Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling,” by Stephen Cope

I used to feel this way, too. I’ve felt this fear and desperation. Many of us have and do, which is why there are thousands of books, workshops, seminars, coaches, and courses to help you find your purpose. The goal is to feel that “aha!” moment of awareness and knowing. To name it and claim it.

As one of the biggest fears we humans carry, it is worth dissecting it before jumping on the purpose-finding bandwagon.

The Multi-Potentialite

“What would your life be like if you gave yourself permission to be everything you wanted to be?” ― Emilie Wapnick, How to Be Everything: A Guide for Those Who (Still) Don’t Know What They Want to Be When They Grow Up

In 2015, Emilie Wapnick coined the term “multi-potentialite” in a TedTalk entitled, “Why Some of Us Don’t Have One True Calling.”

A multi-potentialite refers to those of us who never really settle into a single career path but tend to “hop around” from job to job or interest to interest. We’re the ones society gets annoyed with because we won’t settle down. We’re the ones our friends tease because we’ve always got another venture on the horizon. We’re the ones who won’t, and probably can’t, answer the question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Some multi-potentialities create their own path and find joy this way. Others braid several of their loves into one unique, personalized path. The heart of a multi-potentialite always stays one step ahead of the ever-hovering boxes and labels.

No label can contain us. No one job, role, or title could ever satisfy us. For a little while, yes. We might even feel ecstatic about some new venture for a decade or longer. But for a lifetime? No way.

I’m a multi-potentialite not because I can’t find anything that interests me, but because so many things interest me. I think this is true of many of us.

When I saw this TedTalk, I felt seen. This was how I lived my life! While I’ve found many things that interest me, I’ve never stayed with any of them. I’m like a snake, slithering through the “skins” of my life—regardless of success and not demoralized by failure.

I’m a multi-potentialite not because I can’t find anything that interests me but because so many things interest me. I think this is true of many of us.

I left the corporate world after only five years when I realized that waiting around for small percentage raises each year for the rest of my life was batshit crazy.

I left teaching yoga after 10 years when I said to myself, “If I have to guide someone into Downward Facing Dog Pose one more time I’m going to scream.”

I left my alternative health care practice after just two years when I realized that I didn’t really care to know about the bowel movements of my clients, even though that was critical information for me to make any kind of assessment or recommendation.

And now, though I’ve been a writer/author for some years, perhaps a day will come when I will say something like, “If I have to run one more post through Grammarly, I’m going to delete every post I’ve ever written.”

It’s possible. It’s entirely plausible that I’m not meant to stick with one thing no matter what it is—not in the real world, and not in the spiritual world, either.

Work, Work, Work

Too much work, and no vacation, Deserves at least a small libation. So hail! my friends, and raise your glasses, Work’s the curse of the drinking classes.

~Oscar Wilde

The word “work” makes my body tighten up in resistance. It reminds me of all the events my dad had to miss when I was growing up because he was “at work.” It reminds me of my husband missing milestones in our daughters’ growing up because of “work.”

Work, we are taught, comes before pleasure. Any pleasure we do indulge in is a result of, and comes only after, we’ve punched out. Our accomplishments through work are praised and rewarded (or, at least, they are supposed to be). In our world, we’ve equated our accomplishments with our identity and worthines. Only after we’ve put in a “hard day’s work,” do we feel justified to let loose and let our hair down.

We have been culturally conditioned to sacrifice our personal time for work, and to be praised for this, too. In the West, we think nothing of devoting 40 hours of our waking week to something we may or may not even like.

Spiritual Teachings Wrapped in Culture

Spirituality is supposed to challenge our way of life and provide new avenues of thinking and being.

But, what happens when the spiritual world, instead of being a balm for the culture, absorbs the culture? What happens when, instead of spirituality influencing culture for the better, culture bleeds into our spiritual life?

Culture has poisoned the larger, more authentic meaning of dharma, as it has with so many other spiritual teachings.

If dharma is the word for a soul’s work, then what is the term for a soul’s hobby? And if there isn’t one, why not?

Does everything in life—even the life of a soul—need to be about accomplishments, goals, checklists, and progress reports? Does everything need obligation, contracts, and mission statements?

I resist our blind allegiance to work over pleasure in our traditional lives, and I loathe the idea of a soul tethered so tightly to a “dharma” such that there’s no room for play.

I have a hard time believing that our souls had strict marching orders from the “boss” before they entered a human body. I struggle to believe they wrote up a checklist like we do for our day-to-day jobs.

Can any part of our lives be free of this languaging? Must we pressure each other to find our dharma?

Can a soul not have hobbies? Pursuits of pleasure or desire? Adventures of curiosity and wonder?

“Dharma,” at least the way we often interpret it into “purpose,” is yet another way the spiritual community has succumbed to the trappings of the culture that it seeks to heal and bring wisdom to.

A Dharma Dabbler

“Mad Hatter: Am I going mad? Alice: Yes, you’re mad, bonkers, off the top of your head…but…I’ll tell you a secret. All the best people are.”

― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass

What are you? A writer or a painter? Do you want to teach? Sing? Act? Screen-write? How about making a podcast? An online course? Maybe you should go back to school, or get a certificate in something!

Yes! All of the above, please!

What happens to those of us who’d rather explore life like we explore Costco—tasting a little of all the samples—rather than commiting to any one thing? What does our refusal to “find something and stick to it already” say about who we are?

If I’m a multi-potentialite in the real world, then call me a “Dharma Dabbler” in the spiritual world.

I have no single “purpose” other than to grow and learn and try and fail and succeed through all the different avenues available to me. I prefer the “ing”s of life— connecting, creating, transforming, deepening, reaching, folding—over the nouns. The verbs are more pliable, more true. I’ll try anything if there’s a possibility I can grow my connection to my soul and play with different ways of being.

I’m not certain about my life path, but I am certain that I will never settle into just “one thing.” If I haven’t by this time in my life, why would I think it’s still out there, waiting for me?

One of the characteristics of the word work that simply doesn’t fit into the life is the soul is the idea of completion. We get our work done, we complete things, we check them off our list and move on. There’s something too complete and final about this concept of finding and naming our dharma. I suppose it would feel comforting to say, “This is who I am” and never waiver from that.

But that’s not my path.

My path has revealed one thing over and over again: my soul will never be done, or complete. My soul is here for the free samples.

“All work and no play makes Jack a very dull boy.”

Proverb

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