"You have to find your life's calling and follow it"

This concept gives me heavy stress. If I have one, I can't figure it out. It's a lot of pressure, the idea of having a Very Special Unique Singular Purpose that is a driving force. It seems somewhat vain to me. However, I am a confused young lady and maybe this idea really works for some people. Does it for you?

whenever you are troubled and confused simply gaze at joyce dewitt mugshot and all will become clear

http://image.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/Joycedewitt.jpg

gaze not long into the abyss

joyce dewitt gazes also into you

abbott if you get a call from my life re: its ultimate purpose please be so kind as to pass on the message to me

i would surely do the same for you

i'm afraid that if my life called about its ultimate purpose I wouldn't answer the phone, believing it be the collection agency that calls 3-5 times a day about the bf's credit card.

This is a total canard, IMO.

90% sure my lifes ultimate purpose is to be as rad as possible on the daily & i have been fulfilling it righteously of late

WE'VE TRACED THE CALL -- IT IS COMING FROM INSIDE YOUR SELF

my only advice is: if someone offers you the opportunity to do something really cool, do it! (and don't worry to much about where things might lead.)

real talk tho--isnt this just a sort of roundabout way of saying do what makes you happy?

^provided you don't suck balls at it. unless it is, y'know, sucking balls.

You're likely to be pretty good at what makes you happy.

xp well, it depends on how you interpret it. For me it implies not just something that is eminently satisfying, but also "making a difference" and something that you're really good at.

^^ that's a tall order

If everyone had a true life's calling we wouldn't have enough people to do all the mundane jobs that we need so many people for. I sincerely doubt that every nurse had a life's calling to be a nurse, every bus driver to be a bus driver, every IT guy to be an IT guy, etc.

An actor who works as a waiter to pay the bills doesn't necessarily think of himself as a waiter.

xp La Lechera: exactly, that's why it's intimidating and stressful to me.

I'm on board with "do what makes you happy," I just don't believe that that everyone has a "Very Special Unique Singular Purpose that is a driving force," as Abbott put it. We continue to ask kids "what do you want to be when you grow up?", as though a) we only have one profession for the rest of our lives and b) we're defined exclusively by that profession. Which is pretty much untrue for most of the people I know.

When I was five I wanted to be a dentist because I thought the human mouth was a sort of undiscovered country and that I'd be a kind of explorer.

Right I mean for me this isn't about finding a thing I'm good at and doing it forever and finding someone to pay me for it, it's about pursuing my passions to the best of my abilities.

hurting <333333333333333333333333333

Herman Blume: What's the secret, Max?
Max Fischer: The secret?
Herman Blume: Yeah, you seem to have it pretty figured out.
Max Fischer: The secret, I don't know... I guess you've just gotta find something you love to do and then... do it for the rest of your life. For me, it's going to Rushmore.

Right I mean for me this isn't about finding a thing I'm good at and doing it forever and finding someone to pay me for it, it's about pursuing my passions to the best of my abilities.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, July 7, 2009 7:16 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

The flipside of this is that I trade crusades like cards so every 2-3 years I'm pursuing some new fun shit I've never done before.

yeah but what if you're "life's purpose" is to bear witness to some unspeakable atrocity, or to unearth some ancient manuscript that reveals humanity's extra-terrestrial origins, or something on a worldly / cozmik scale???

I'll find it when I get to it. And I know I will.

you will find your steen and you will drive it.

hey you know you could always cop out and decide that your purpose is to "raise your kids" which is uh pretty common no?

My life's calling is posting boring shit on the internet.

I was born with a brainful of memes and 12 fingers.

not to shit on parenting I mean

Recently, because of the economy, a lot of my friends have been jumping from career track to career track. One of them was earning a degree in architecture, and now is in culinary school. Another was working as an accountant, and after he was laid off, took the LSATs, and is looking at either going to Law School or getting a Psych degree. I feel like the model of one profession - one life's calling - doesn't really work these days.

yeah but your life's calling doesn't really necessarily mean your profession, does it? you could decide to have the longest fingernail in the world, as some do

I guess I do feel like music is that thing for me, but the idea of trying to make a living at it at this point is almost absurd to me. Maybe everyone at least has some hobby or interest that they're passionate enough about to keep up their whole life, but that's no reason to try to find employment in it.

In a way it's a purer way to pursue certain kinds of callings -- a "career" can be very tainting.

or to collect every hummel figurine

http://www.morethings.com/images/richard_pryor/jo_jo_dancer.jpg

When I was five I wanted to be a dentist because I thought the human mouth was a sort of undiscovered country and that I'd be a kind of explorer.

and then you saw shane from the pogues

its absurd to me that anyone thinks they have a purpose other than survival and possibly procreation like any other creature. everything else is gravy so you might as well make yourself happy and do what you find fun.

Yeah I'm with Sunny on this one. It's a paradox of amazingness in life that everyone is both perfectly unique and basically like everyone else -- that those conditions co-exist is the amazing part! The effort to label something as a "calling" or w/e feels like some kind of need to elevate the self over others/normality. When really normality is everyone/no one at the same time already, so why bother?!

xpost what sunny sais. it made life... somewhat easier. hah

My calling is to find a job that doesn't make me miserable eight to ten hours of every day.

Sorry, feeling a little occupational angst today.

I was thinking earlier, that while I'm doing pretty decently in moving towards the career/life direction I want to be going in, there are a probably a bunch of outcomes that I could be satisfied with. I have a small number of fairly basic drives I want to be running free, and after those I'm fine. I used to feel the need to be wildly successful and IMPORTANT (I guess that's being a wildly overachieving child for ya), but now give me a job that I find decently worthy and the time to do things I like to do and I'm good. Makes me wonder why I want to spend the next million years getting myself a PhD, really.

90% sure my lifes ultimate purpose is to be as rad as possible on the daily & i have been fulfilling it righteously of late

Wait, me too! I took a vow to always be awesome, I think that's the thing, thanking u max I feel mostly not bad.

I think that, for at least the last decade, and probably longer if I cared to depress myself, I've fought an ongoing battle between the things that bring me instant gratification, and those which will ultimately be more rewarding, given proper time, attention and dedication.

I've realized that avoiding this fight is something I will always have to work at, and the best way for me to do it is to work to reconcile these things by simply remaining mindful of what I'm doing and how its going to affect tomorrow, next week, next month.

I've never heard a particular calling, unless wanting to remain devoted to my wife is such. I think I have a certain set of aptitudes and skills that lend itself better to some things than to others, but I find no one particular vocation or occupation undeniably appealing.

So, the aim to remain rad in all that you do might suffice for now, and for a while.

my calling is to use the word "canard" more in casual conversation.

canardy in a canola mine

hah!
ya i had no idea there was something about planes in here

but they can really get you where you need to go

like basically

my goal

is to RUN IRL

in whatever capacity i am capable of given my skills and talents at any period of my life

my only advice is: if someone offers you the opportunity to do something really cool, do it! (and don't worry to much about where things might lead.)

― scott seward, Tuesday, July 7, 2009 3:08 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this has kind of been my credo

The BS about finding one's true calling is another leftover from romanticism, a movement which is still alive and kicking and, not coincidentally, still confusing and misleading millions of young people about how life works. It is analogous to the idea that there exists for each of us one (and only one) true lover and soulmate, who we are duty-bound to locate and fall in love with.

All people have talents and interests, which may or may not complement one another. Some activities engage one or both of these more completely and fruitfully than others. When an activity really clicks with your talents and your interests, you may, in some sense, regard it as a "calling" - but only insofar as pursuing this activity calls forth and develops what is best in you.

This activity could, theoretically, be building a toothpick replica of the Grand Forecourt of the Chicago Exposition of 1892. Or ship models inside bottles. Or some other seemingly silly or useless endeavor. It is all a matter of random convergence.