I came to the new book A Life at Work by Thomas Moore with no preconceived notions, other than that I liked the subtitle's promise to help me realize "The Joy of Discovering What You Were Born To Do."

If you are not familiar with Thomas Moore (I was not), he is a former monk/professor/psychotherapist who wrote Care of the Soul, a popular book on spirituality in the mid-1990s. As you might imagine, based on Moore's background, his idea of discovering what you were born to do is not a matter of taking quizzes on your likes and dislikes and having an ideal career pop out the other side. This book is more about discovering who you are, what your passions are, and working through the muck to come to a place where it all fits together (and where you can still make some money). If I were pitching the book to a publisher, I'd call it a cross between The Road Less Traveled and What Color Is Your Parachute?, although leaning more toward the Road than the Parachute.

In guiding you down a path of more fulfilling work, Moore uses the device of comparing your journey to that of an old-time alchemist, who does much experimenting and sometimes takes wrong turns before an effective elixir is ultimately brewed. It's a nice device, because the book sort of meanders to a lot of different places, and the alchemy metaphor helps tie them together. Although I found all of these places interesting, I can't say I finished the book with the thought that I was closer to my "calling."

Moore is probably a great psychotherapist, because here's what he accomplishes in these pages: he makes you feel OK about who you are and your struggles to find real meaning in what you do for work. But not only that: he encourages you to not be so hard on yourself and to realize that you don't have to be achieving fame or some sort of "greatness" to be doing something worthwhile. Just keep looking at your life, your passions, your past, and keep trying to take steps that lead you where you need to be (even if you don't always know where that is).

One of the themes throughout the book that I appreciated was Moore's idea that not every passion is a career, and we shouldn't beat ourselves up about being on the wrong path if our #1 passion isn't our full-time job. We can't all realistically be musicians, or pilots, or authors or working tirelessly to end world hunger or whatever your passion may be. That doesn't mean you can't still pursue those passions and fit them into an overall satisfying life. Sometimes you need an outlook change more than a job change.

If a lot of this sounds vague, it is. Moore's goal seems less to help you find the career for you than to encourage you to keep self-analyzing and moving in a direction that suits you. Keep "working" on yourself and thinking about your path, and you may be surprised to look back and see how the sum of your decisions has brought you to the place you should be.

In the end, A Life At Work isn't a logical fit to review on a personal finance blog, because there's nothing here that's going to help you make more money or answer an interview question correctly. But work is where we make our money, and it's where we spend most of our time, so it makes sense to keep thinking about how to make that time rewarding in more than just dollars and cents.