Reflections on Finding and Living Our Vocation
Reflections on Finding and Living Our Vocation*
“Someone has a great fire in his soul and nobody ever comes to warm themselves at it, and passers-by see nothing but a little smoke at the top of the chimney.”
Vincent van Gogh
It is possible to live a life other than our own. This happens when the life we live is not the life that wants to live in us. When what we do on the outside contradicts a fundamental value on the inside. When we diminish ourselves by separating personal meaning from outside activity. When we harm ourselves and others in doing work that is not ours to do. When we do something that is against our nature or against the nature of our relationships. When we give what we do not possess. When we try to be who we are not. When we fear publicly failing and privately dying.
Our vocation is a great gift that has been given to us at birth as our purpose in life—the one thing we must do for ourselves that others need us to do for them. We fail to see or accept this gift because we are blind, or willful, or insecure, or ambitious, or distracted by others’ expectations. The superficial identity of our ego must dissolve or be broken so we can find that place in our life where our great joys meet the world’s great needs.
Our life is a pilgrimage for dissolving our ego and finding our vocation. The traumas, losses, betrayals, hardships, disappointments, and darkness we encounter on our pilgrimage are not accidental. They, too, are gifts given to each of us—to teach us, humble us, strengthen us, and eventually inspire us to do what we are meant to do. These sufferings give us understanding and empathy and courage. They enable us to be credible, approachable, and useful to others who suffer and who need us to help them as they heal.
The pilgrimage toward true self may take many years and carry us to many places. It is a journey from the autonomy of individuality to the ecosystem of community. This does not happen over night or all at once. We must learn to care for ourselves and commit to care for others. We must be patient with ambiguity and passionate without reward. We must learn to listen to our heart’s desire. We must give ourselves over to obsessive intensity and heartrending experience. We must find and accept our limits. We must embrace congruence between inner and outer life.
Our vocation is a calling that we journey to hear and choose to pursue. To live from inside out, we must ask our life what it intends to do with us, and we must be witness to its still small voice. Our greatest strengths may be what we take most for granted, hidden in plain sight. To willingly give others our deficits and freely accept their limitations may be our greatest service.
* See Parker J. Palmer, LET YOUR LIFE SPEAK: LISTENING FOR THE VOICE OF VOCATION (Jossey-Bass, 2000).