I’m Busy, But Don’t Feel Useful….

“I just don’t feel useful…” This was a comment from a friend in her 80s. She lives independently, still drives, and volunteers several hours a week for various causes. From the outside, we could say that she is “aging successfully.” Yet, she didn’t feel useful.

What I’ve seen in so many elders is that we can equate busyness with usefulness, or purpose. However, busyness - while good in many ways for us - cannot replace feeling useful, or in other words, the feeling of having purpose. In my personal experience, not having that sense of usefulness or purpose, is one of the main contributing factors to depression, especially in our elders. 

It doesn’t matter our age, we all want our lives to count for something, to have a purpose, to be contributing our skills, talents and passions to the greater good.

Often when we hear someone like our friend make a similar comment, our reaction can be - But you’re doing so much good! Or, of course you’re useful! Instead, a better question might be this: what would make you feel like you had a purpose? 

Sometimes it’s just a mindset shift…seeing ourselves the way others see us. That the things we are doing to stay busy really are contributing to our purpose. Other times, it might be stopping the activities (even the good ones) that keep us so busy but aren’t fulfilling us, and take a moment to figure out what that intersection is between what we want to offer and what the world needs. 

A couple of questions we ask our clients:

What makes you feel alive or brings you joy?

What hobbies do you have and love that you could share with others (either the experience or the product)?

Feeling useful and having a sense of purpose doesn’t have to be HUGE, but it does need to be meaningful to YOU. At the risk of sounding cheesy….we all can make the world a little better and reap the fruit of feeling useful as we do so.