We now move to what I think of as ‘voca­tional think­ing’ – the idea that each of us is here for a rea­son – a pur­pose – and that one of the marks of the flow of our life is how well we are liv­ing our vocation.

I’ve writ­ten about this idea before – and you can search the index for “voca­tion” arti­cles. In keep­ing with the present series, I want to skip the defend­ing the con­cept part, and get to my tra­di­tional ‘three choices’ idea. So, play along, and con­cede that every­one has a purpose.

Part of the walk of self-knowing is to iden­tify and then live one’s voca­tion. If we leave out deny­ing one’s voca­tion, there are only three things one can do with one:

1. Min­i­mize it, and try to fit it in, as if it’s one thing of many.
2. Fund it by get­ting a job.
3. Live it as one’s career.

I sus­pect I’ve unin­ten­tion­ally put the choices in the most preva­lent order.

Back in the 80’s (and once recently) I’ve led a Voca­tion Work­shop, to help par­tic­i­pants hone in on their voca­tion. One of the exer­cises is to write down what a “per­fect day” would look like. I sug­gested this exer­cise to a cur­rent client dur­ing his last ses­sion, and he sent me an e-mail the other day, just in time for this arti­cle, appar­ently. His list was quite sweet and fun, and had lots of fam­ily time in it. What was miss­ing was ‘the fund­ing paradigm.’

After I asked him to add one — to make his per­fect day a ‘work day’ — he said that what he had sent me was a ‘per­fect Sat­ur­day…’

In other words, as per choice #1, above, this exer­cise is often inter­preted as if a ‘per­fect day’ is a hol­i­day, or a vaca­tion day.

It’s all fun and games, and spe­cial, as opposed to think­ing one can have a per­fect day every day!

Now, think about that one for a moment. Believ­ing that a ‘per­fect day’ is a spe­cial day says, clearly, that the goal of my whole life is to get through the work-week so I can enjoy a day or two on the weekend.

Math­e­mat­i­cally, it’s the equiv­a­lent of arriv­ing at 70, hav­ing spent 50 years of the 70 in unremit­ting toil, so as to enjoy 20 years. What a sacrifice!

Or, think about the peo­ple you know who thought they’d be able to ‘really live’ when they retired. Most of these peo­ple “pissed away” their week­ends too, on a tear to get to retire­ment. What they for­got was that they’d also be old when they retired, and all the adven­tures they put off were likely not going to happen.

This hap­pens because we don’t often notice what we are doing—day by day. We’re not present with our days.
They sim­ply “pass by.”

We wake up one day and see just how many have passed by, never to be regained.
Choice #1 means we have given up 5 to enjoy 2.

Choice #1 is basi­cally a result of the Indus­trial rev­o­lu­tion. Prior to that, life was more organic and sea­sonal, and most peo­ple had a ‘craft.’ The IR led to the idea of the 50-hour work week, which got to be the 40-hour work week, and the higher up the lad­der you got, the more over­time (often unpaid.) Every­thing is allowed slide, except work. Thus, a para­dox. The IR gives us the stuff we sur­round our­selves with, and also robs us of our presence.

Choice #2 is a less pop­u­lar one. Voca­tion becomes a hobby or a side­line, a part-time passion.

I do believe this to be a bet­ter choice than choice #1. I lived this one for a decade or so – I played at being a Min­is­ter so I could afford to coun­sel. This choice even­tu­ally led to my phys­i­cal break­down, my first course at The Haven, and get­ting kicked out of the church. It is my belief that my call­ing to coun­sel was and is my voca­tion, and fid­dling around with it while pre­tend­ing to be some­thing else was a poor choice on my part.

I just recalled grad­u­at­ing from col­lege in ’73 and get­ting a job at a bank. I, for a year or two, seduced myself (with pro­mo­tions and praise) into think­ing I could be a banker. And the joke is, I could have. I’m details ori­ented, and was good at it. It just didn’t ‘float my boat.’ The Min­istry thing was next, and also a tricky diversion.

I think most peo­ple really do have a sense of their call­ing. I can’t imag­ine Dar­bella being any­thing other than a teacher. She so excels at it. And it flows through every­thing she does. When we work together doing coun­selling or work­shops, she often is the one of us that finds the per­fect sen­tence to sum­ma­rize a point I am labour­ing long and hard to make. She comes at things from her own unique per­spec­tive, and her voice and under­stand­ing is true and clear.

Choice #3 is, I think, the place all of us need to be mov­ing toward, or sim­ply doing.

When I did my own ‘per­fect day’ sce­nario exer­cise in the 80s, I came up with a day filled with time for med­i­ta­tion and writ­ing, and coun­selling was organic – it hap­pened dur­ing the day, in con­ver­sa­tions and dia­logue, in for­mal ses­sions and over meals. It’s what Dar and I do with our Day Long Inten­sives and Week­end Res­i­den­tials.

In other words, there is no longer a dis­tinc­tion between work and life. There is just a sense of flow. What one does is who one is, and this doing and being is played out in everything.

One of my clients talks about want­ing to be of ser­vice to oth­ers, and her way of doing that is in the finan­cial sec­tor. But, you see, here comes the choice.

One approach would be to put total empha­sis on the job – being an excel­lent worker. If she makes this choice, her voca­tion (ser­vice to oth­ers) will only hap­pen with clients and at work. The other option is to see her­self in ser­vice to oth­ers – to every­one – to fam­ily, friends, part­ner, clients, co-workers. The tool that funds her voca­tion is the finan­cial sec­tor, but the liv­ing out of the voca­tion is hap­pen­ing all the time, with everyone.

I don’t want to get into a big thing here about how I am using the word ‘ser­vice.’ If you’ve been read­ing my stuff for a while, you know I do not mean mak­ing myself avail­able to be used by oth­ers. If you know me per­son­ally, you’ll know that is not how I live.

I did the radio inter­view a week and a half ago. The pro­ducer wants me to do my own show, and mostly because “I like your no BS approach.” My ser­vice, as I see it, is whack­ing peo­ple smartly about the head, and say­ing “Wake Up!”

This week, have a look at your pas­sions. See how your skills and tal­ents are being used by you. Have you bifur­cated your life into ‘work’ and ‘plea­sure’? If so, talk to some­one about voca­tional think­ing. (Find a Jesuit or a ther­a­pist! Or both!)