Do you have a job? Just a job, I mean, you do it for the money? If you won enough money, you would quit on the spot?
o you have a career? If you work hard and get your qualifications you will move a rung on the ladder. Maybe you will become a team leader or a manager. Who knows, one day you may even become the CEO.
Jobs and careers are mainly to benefit you, not the people that you serve. The focus is inward. The benefits are external – money, promotion, status. Often the expectations of a career are not met and retirement starts to look attractive. Imagine looking forward to the end of something that you have been doing for most of your life. You do feel relieved when a loud noise stops….for a short time. The people that I have met who are retired don’t seem as contented as they had planned to be.
What’s the alternative? How about a calling? A ‘calling’ or vocation is something that you believe that you are called to do. You are good at it and enjoy doing it and it helps others. You truly believe that this is THE job and that you were meant to be doing it. The money is not critical but the contribution you make IS. The person who is meant to directly benefit from your ‘calling’ is the person you are assisting. I have known taxi drivers, receptionists, sales assistants and guides at theme parks who seem to have a ‘calling’. It is easy to tell from their attitude that this is so much more than a job or a career. They want to help and obviously enjoy what they are doing. They are also good at what they do and get added enjoyment by displaying their skills.
What is your calling? What are you good at? Are you doing what you are good at as part of your working life? If a voice from the clouds told you what to do with your talents and working life, what would it say? Would it say ‘Stay in the Bank until you retire!’ or “Hang on for another ten yearsâ€.
Maybe this is the only life we get and is not a rehearsal for something else. It may seem risky to leave a perfectly secure job for a faint calling. Imagine the desperation of coming to the end and thinking ‘Why didn’t I do what I really wanted to do when I had the time?’
So get started on identifying what it is that you enjoy doing that will benefit you and others and has a sense of vocation. Of course we all need money to exist but you would do this ‘calling’ even if you were not paid because you enjoy doing it so much. Maybe the money will come if you truly identify what you are best at and do it for life.
I once sat with a man who was dying as he told me what he had not done with his life. Following your heart is not for a privileged few. Maybe it is for the courageous few.
Paddy
