Purpose paradox

I am counting down the days until I leave my job.  My job is great, it has flexible hours which suits me, and it has provided me with the funding I need to execute my master plan, but it is so unsatisfying to me.

For me, my job seems pointless.  Utterly pointless.

For me, a job which does not add value directly to others, a job which is not fulfilling the actual genuine needs of others, is pointless.  It is not enough for me to create the software on the phone which is used for the emergency callout, I need to be the paramedic breathing life back into the patient to feel as if I have made a difference.  I honestly found working as a cleaner in a care home for Alzheimer's patients more satisfying than my current job.

It is as if I need to serve others in order to feel my own life is of value.

On the surface, this sounds great.  I could travel the world working as a volunteer for life-changing humanitarian projects and feel as if my own life was of value.

And what's wrong with that?  

Nothing is wrong with that, of course it isn't.  But something is out of line, the logic is paradoxical. For my life to have purpose, I need to help others.  Yet by that same standard, if I am helping those who are not living to help others, then their lives must also lack purpose.

How can adding to the lives of those who lack purpose make my own life purposeful?

Of course, it can't.  It is a paradox.  What this means is that helping others can not be the purpose of living.  That doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile, I still intend to do a lot of volunteering.  But it shouldn't be your source of purpose and meaning in life, because it cannot fulfill this need.  I need to do some serious re-thinking...