When your dream job is camouflaged in your purpose 

What is your purpose in life? This is a question that has been doing rounds this month in eight universities across the country during the NSSF-NMG annual universities career fair.

Although not directed at him, last Sunday during the Green Hill 30th anniversary celebrations, Stephen Kaziimba Mugalu, the archbishop of Church of Uganda, offered the biblical perspective to this question. He said our purpose in life is to give glory to God in whatever we do. We should thank him for whatever he has given us and whatever success we achieve in life because he is in charge of whatever we do in life.

During his career guidance session with students at Kampala International University early this month, Stephens Mwanje, the chief finance officer NSSF, said one’s purpose in life is that one thing that makes them want to wake up every day.

“I want to be a person of difference and substance. Each one of you is unique. The world has over three billion people and we can have three billion purposes,” he said.

He emphasised that when you wake up and think differently because of the different genetic make-up, that is why you find people studying medicine specialising in specific aspects because each one is unique and if you have not discovered your purpose, then the years you are spending on earth are useless. 

Mathias Katamba, a life coach, says the skills one gathers in their lifetime, are valuable and should enable a person discover their purpose in life, especially after the world changing dramatically following the Covid-19 pandemic which has created a new environment with new opportunities.

“The new environment has new opportunities. Employees are now looking for a more meaningful life today. Many young people are looking for something more meaningful. In other words they are looking for purpose,” he said.

Micheal Segwaya, the chief finance officer Absa Bank, observes that one can learn their purpose in life when it comes to understanding their contribution to improvement of health, the family or community.

“Beginning every year, universities are churning out unemployed graduates, so let us be the solution to this economy. Can you be the change in the community? Where you are right now should prepare you for the future. What you produce to the world makes your story matter. It is that story which will sell you. The things you are experiencing today are part of your story,” he said, adding that honesty, integrity and hard work should be part of the solution you are bringing to your community and company 

Kevin Anena Okumu, a social worker with the American Peace Corps, told Gulu University students that finding one purpose starts with the self and it is the self to create it.

“Ask yourself; who am I? We always make mistakes by involving ‘we’. It is always you. In life never expect more than you can achieve. Realise who you are and know who you are by having a unique skill you have discovered about yourself,” she said.

She advised that when setting up a goal, do not set an unrealistic goal because what kills the young generation these days is having a dream bigger than what they can achieve. 

Bonny Musisi, the technical center officer NSSF, says discovering one’s purpose in life starts with discovering one’s reason for existing in life. He says whereas parents played the role of bringing you to life, they have no control over purpose of your existence or why you had to be born.

“Before you were born, there were people who decided that you be born but they did not know why you had to be born, they ensured that you were born. Your purpose is the reason for your existence. A life without purpose is very useless because it wastes a lot of time and you do not achieve anything,” he said.

He advises that to understand one’s purpose, one should look at the nature of their  temperaments and characteristics because sometimes they will help understand your purpose in life and the moment one deviates from one’s  purpose you begin to die mentally and emotionally because hope has been lost.

Joan Mugenzi, a life coach who is now fully employed to support people who discover their purpose to realise it and also helps other people understand who they are, says she also learnt that she is an encourager in 2003. 

Mugenzi says this was a journey and the day she realised that her purpose in life is speaking to people’s lives, was when she started a jolly good ride in her life.

“Your purpose sits within you. Nobody will pursue your purpose on your behalf. I support people discover their purpose so that they will find the reason to live it. It will energise you and another area where I support people is on the financial literacy. I encourage people to start saving for themselves, it is not about the job because you will get jobs,” she told students of Islamic University in Uganda, Mbale Campus.

Julia Kigozi, the dean Makerere University School of Food Science and Technology, observes that when students join university, they come with different thoughts on what they want to do. 

“These days we have to show them what else they can do.  When young people get anything, they become frustrated. Some are lucky to be taught from a young age, especially if they have grown from families that do business; they can create a service and earn from it,” she notes.

She adds that some students want to start out on business but cannot due to lack of capital and it is important to show them how to venture into entrepreneurship and help them find their purpose.