Comments on: Finding Your Calling Part II: The Myths and Realities of Vocation

By: edward

edward — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 14:03:09 +0000

Perhaps the reason why many men cannot find their calling is because they did not experience life enough in the first place. I mean that, in order to know your taste, your skills, your passion, you need to try a lot of things___in other words, to be curious. The vocation will not come to you through the sky or the voice of God,. To use the simili about women__ you got to date a lot before you can find the one. However i find men lazy, they tend to chose the easy path__ the one everyone follows. They lack courage to make decisions ,and instead listen to others.

By: Ken Mattsson

Ken Mattsson — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:16:37 +0000

I get this conundrum all the time with my clients. As a career consultant who works particularly with people in the creative fields, I find that people either get caught up in the “What is my dream?” and pursue that with abandon, or do the “What can I do right now that will bring in money?” question and see everything else as unattainable. There really needs to be a mix between realizing what are the areas that really grab you and you feel called to, and what are the tangible skills that you have that other people would like you to provide. You need to start looking at what you’ve got now, what your goals are, notice the gaps, and then working to not only fill those gaps, but how to let people know that you’ve filled those gaps.

By: tibor

tibor — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 15:02:49 +0000

I agree with w. adam above. Most people in the world trudge through meaningless jobs in order to pay the bills and support the family. When I say meaningless, I should clarify that it may be meaningless to them, or uninteresting. Certainly all jobs have value, and a function in society. It seems that very few people are fortunate enough to have found their calling, even more importantly, to have been able to make that calling work for them. I remember seeing the film director Ridley Scott being interviewed on television, and he said that he can’t wait to wake up at 6 AM every day to get to work on whatever project he is doing. To use a quasi-Biblical concept, he is one of “the chosen people,” who are fortunate, but few and far between.

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:20:13 +0000

Great series so far, really enjoy it. I wish I read something like this when I was 17-18 – would help me greatly

By: JT

JT — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 19:51:01 +0000

Great article once again! Keep up the good work!

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 18:14:48 +0000

I agree with the three categories of job, career, and vocation. They really hit home. Unfortunately, my experience working within corporate environments is that you may find a vocation or calling, a job that you may feel you were meant to do, and then it changes. A new boss who believes in old-style authoritarian managment, who sets up a series of hoops, or a change in corporate strategy, etc. can take your vocation and make it into a job literally overnight. This change can happen no matter if you’ve paid your dues, and had the vision and perseverance to take a chance and see it through. “Balls”, as in speaking up to change the situation, could actually end up making the situation worse, putting you in the proverbial doghouse. I wonder then if, to be in a true vocation over a long period of time, it may require working for yourself rather than being subject to the many changes and challenges of organizations that people have little or no control over.

By: William Saidland

William Saidland — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 21:03:24 +0000

W. Adam:

I have a distaste for “Kumbaya” articles as well. I didn’t get that from this article. I think the 3 Myths represented three common misconceptions about the working world. And would be very helpful for young and old who embark on new paths. It is true that, “most people make no long range career plans, fall into whatever is out there and yes–are wasting their working lives”. Actually I think few would protest that statement.

However, “but those of us who did pay the dues to enter a profession, or a skilled trade, or a creative career should not be lumped in with the “office workers and blue collar guys” because we had the vision, the perseverance, and the “balls” to see the dream, work towards it, and live it.”, statement, doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the article. It seems to serve the purpose only of putting yourself in the “good” category.

Finding your calling doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with perseverance, and “balls”. Possibly vision but balls and perseverance can also lead one to stay at a job they hate or a career path that their tribe has inculcated into their psyche as being a GOOD calling. I have known many, for example, lawyers, that have “put their dues in” for 20 years and then found it wasn’t their calling and ended up as “office workers” or laboring on a Christmas tree farm and became exceedingly happy because they at last found their calling. “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation”, but these men are CEOs, Artist, Professionals (Lawyers, Doctors, Politicians, Accountants) and entrepreneurs. I also do not think Blue Collar guys and Office workers are actual jobs, careers, nor callings. They are loaded, usually pejorative categories, not to mention out-dated terms. Suzy the office worker may make 100k a year and the guy up on the telephone pull may have a PhD in electrical engineering…

By: Topher

Topher — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 17:32:51 +0000

I’m a big fan of Marcus Buckingham’s work. His surveys have found that less than 2 in 10 people in the United States feel like they’re playing to their strengths most of the time in their job. His focus on finding your strengths, and then crafting your job to play to those strengths, has been a real change for me. And it doesn’t necessarily involve finding a new career or even a new job – many people have been able to shape their job to fit their strengths. There’s a surprising amount of flexibility in even the most structured job.

Good article. People need to look for what they can bring to a job, not for a job that will just magically “match” them.

By: Rich L

Rich L — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 21:13:46 +0000

Nice Job (Vocation)! lol.

Many of Men have struggled with their “calling” or what they are put here to do. Even people who know what they want to do have a hard time doing it. If you can’t Mortgage the home, quit your day job, because you NEED the money… Start doing what you love to do little by little, take the 1st steps and you will see momentum if you continue doing what you love to do.

I really like the list provided by Leider and Shapiro, it does help you look at things from all different perspectives.

Tweet you later! @SeekingMinds

By: Josh

Josh — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 17:29:17 +0000

Loved the article. The facebook/twitter/digg thing was floating over all the text down the entire page though, kind of irritating.