The past 6 months have been a major time of reflection for me. At first I felt like the only grad who didn’t have direction in what they wanted to do with life/future. To be fair, I don’t think I fully know yet — but I’ve learned so much in this time, that it would be good to blog about my findings. Maybe it might help another person who is going through similar issues.
The issue? Vocation. It’s something that you are exposed to when you’re a kid — “what do you want to be when you grow up?”. As you go into your high-school and post-secondary years, you start study in those areas that you may potentially go to in your future careers. But it’s when you graduate that you really feel those pressures of “getting your life in order” and going into some specific direction. I feel like most of the time we learn about what we don’t want to do, rather than the things that we do. But after working, and talking to many different people who are in different (and also the same) stages of their life, with differing view points has given me great insight into everything. I’ve also been reading a lot into this, and let me tell you that there’s a lot that you can say about this topic! But I definitely think it’s an important topic to discuss. So in light of that I’ll split up this thought process. This first blog post will be about generally what a vocation is. Here is a summary of my thoughts and findings:
There are three ways in which you can categorize “work”:
1) Job: This is the category I see many people in (including myself). Basically the job is the means to usually one specific end: the paycheck. The people in this category live for breaks and vacation, and use the money to pay rent, pay off debts, or something along those lines. They might not necessarily dislike the work that they do, but most people I talked to will say that they don’t find any true, inner satisfaction from the job, and would “not want to do it for the rest of their lives”
2) Career: This category stems off the first category of “the job”. People in this category find their satisfaction from building their careers, and upping their ranks. This is usually their motivation for working that extra bit harder, or working that extra bit later. However there comes a time when this forward progress comes to a standstill and that’s when you see the person get frustrated. I quote one of my co-workers: “I’ve been at this position for 2 years now, and it’s not looking like I’m going to get promoted anytime soon… *sigh* I need to change my job”
3) Vocation: The word “vocation” comes from the latin word “vocare”, which literally means to call. People in this category would do this work, even if they wouldn’t get paid. I see people in this category who feel like they’re doing work that’s truly satisfying, which serves a a greater purpose beyond themselves. But not only that, people feel like their work truly utilizes their unique gifts and talents. It’s almost as if it was made and meant for them.
Clearly a vocation is what you want to go for. It goes beyond mere work that you get for, but rather taps into life purpose. But that definition of vocation seems all too “ideal”. There must be more to it - and there is. “Vocation” comes with all these preconceptions and ideas that are good to clear up before moving further. The one thing people struggle with the most (and it gets them into trouble when things don’t work out), is the idea that there is one specific occupation that you’re suppose to do. Let’s say Doctor, Lawyer, Cab-Driver, Accountant. The answer to that is definitely no. The reality is (and it took me all these years to understand this), is that any job can be a calling. Likewise any calling can be a mere job. Talking to people in so many different careers, I’ve found that in each, there are people who fall into either category. There are lawyers and doctors who truly feel that their line of work is what they were made for. There are also lawyers and doctors I know who find their work just a job. On the flip side, there are janitors who feel like their job is their vocation.
So no, a vocation is definitely not a specific job title, or a line of work (if that was true then if you lost your job, would you lose your calling? - absolutely not). Nope. Our calling isn’t our job, but rather what we bring to the job.
Some of you (you know who :P), I’ve talked to as a “personal legend”. Finding your vocation/calling/personal legend requires you to dive into things that you like to do, that you’re passionate about, and that you’re uniquely suited for. This can range between so many things: teaching/facilitation, event planning, mediation, designing things, fixing things, selling (the list an go on). When these skills/passions/gifts are tapped, it leaves us satisfied. So what does that mean practically? Well there’s an interesting concept I found through my readings whereby these qualities are put into a spectrum. For sake of argument, let’s say that this unique passion of yours is teaching. If you’re called to teach, and you’re in a corporate business office - then you’ll feel truly fulfilled when you make presentations. When people really understand what you’re trying to convey, and you feel that people are moved/changed, that’s when you feel accomplished. But, presentations will probably only account of 10% of your work/time. 90% will be doing other things such as attending meetings and such. Now what if you were to change that job into a high-school teacher - the numbers would flip-flop quite a bit.
Now friends that I’ve talked to about this tell me that this seems “ideal”, but you have to be more “realistic”. There’s a idea that following your calling generally means going after a job that is not necessarily very high paying, and you’ll barely scrape by. Following a more realistic job, although you might not completely like it, will give you more money and more financial freedom to do what you want. In our day and age, money seems to be associated with greater happiness. In light of this post getting too long, I’ll leave that thought and why you should pursue your calling for my next post.
