Choosing a career is an important part of life. Some individuals believe it is so important to find one’s passion or “life-calling” that if a person does not get that one, special job, they will live a life of constant dissatisfaction. I’ve seen this view pop up and struggled through it throughout my time at college. Now an incoming senior, I don’t find it particularly helpful.
Especially in recent months, I’ve been questioning the whole idea of a career being a person’s calling. Perhaps it could be – everyone’s life is different, after all. However, as I research options after college, I am not sure that will be me.
I have loved to write since fourth grade. I started with poetry, went on to create short stories, and by high school, I participated in (and succeeded at) National Novel Writing Month. I loved all of it.
Writing is my passion. However, it's not my calling
Over time, my desire to write became coupled with the desire to create something with a lasting impact on other people. I began to realize this after a friend of mine challenged me to define what success meant for me. I looked back at the things I did, what I liked about them, what I didn’t like about them and why.
The work I found most fulfilling was work that I saw directly helping others. I volunteered at the Pregnancy Care Center of New York for several years and I would take having to organize an entire room piled to the ceilings with material donations over doing office work any day.
I saw the material donations helping people. I made up bags for struggling families and knew the contents would help. I saw them come, saw how the center helped them and heard parts of their stories. While I was happy to help do the office work that allowed events to happen and the center to be in running condition, I didn’t feel the same significance because I couldn’t see the impact on people.
Amidst this realization, I also realized my first passion was still writing.
With both considerations in place, in addition to my love for literature in general, I am looking at options in teaching. Through volunteering with the youth at my church, I know I am not good at teaching – right now. I don’t intend to let it stay that way. I’ve also never had an overwhelming passion to teach, but I know that teaching English does contain a lot of components that I love, chiefly the students. I know it is one of the few things I am not naturally good at but enjoy and am committed to nonetheless.
All things considered, it seems like the best option right now. But even that is not my calling.
I had a discussion with my pastor while asking for his advice. Writing may be my passion. Teaching may be a good career choice. But in the midst of explaining, I had to admit, “It’s not my calling.”
What I do may help make me the way I am, but ultimately, it is not my chief purpose.
My calling is to be a Christian.
It hit me mid-conversation with my pastor. I’ve been a Christian for six years now, so it isn’t a new calling, but I realized that it is the calling that trumps and contains every other purpose in my life.
As a Christian, I am called to love God, give glory to Him, and to love the people He has created. I believe my purpose is especially with those outside of the Church.
This encompasses every other part of my life, be it writing, teaching, serving, eating, sleeping, studying, or being. Anything I do without that recognition is nothing in comparison.
Some people reading this may recognize this call. Others may not. For both groups, I believe the line of thinking can nonetheless be helpful.
Someone can have an important job and be doing significant things in it without it being their calling. They can work somewhere and contribute without it being their passion. They can do purposeful things without it being their purpose. Both of those things can be elsewhere.
This does not mean it is useless. Even those who don’t have a passion for what they do can still do excellent, beautiful, useful work. It also doesn’t mean that people who work like this must be miserable or dissatisfied. Work can still be enjoyable, even if one realizes it is not the primary purpose of their life.
None of this is to say finding a career a person is compatible with and can enjoy is not important. That absolutely is, and I would advise against someone getting a job that is not one or both of those things. Perhaps, however, we can stop pretending that finding that all-important, completely satisfying job is what gives us purpose.
