Are You Working At Your Job, Your Career, or Your Calling?
I recently read an outstanding book by author and Harvard lecturer Tal Ben-Shahar. Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment.
I have to confess that I have a sometimes-cynical approach when I’m reading in the field of positive psychology, only because there is so much pop psychology tripe that promises the world without any evidence of repeatable success. Not so with this book. Ben-Shahar’s book is well researched and extremely logical in it’s approach.
This blog post, however, is not a book review. I wish to highlight one key question that the author poses.
Are you working at your job, at your career, or at your calling?
Don’t answer too quickly; your first order of business is to determine what you want your work to represent. In other words, there is no correct answer to the question.
Your Job
For many, their work is their paycheck and they are fine with that. The priority of their life is not the work they happen to get paid for.
Their passion lies elsewhere – family, church, mission. I have no problem with this. Working hard and putting food on the table – that’s noble.
Your Career
Others have found success and aptitude in a certain field, enough to call their work a legitimate career. There is growth, fulfillment, stability and financial reward.
No, these people are not the actors or inventors or world-changers that they had suspected they would be back in college, but they’ve carved out a good life. Again, all good.
Your Calling
For some of us (again, it doesn’t make things right or wrong) it is all about the calling. We need to do what we were meant to do, what we are passionate about doing, what amuses us and allows us to know that we are making our mark on this planet.
We are passionate, driven and fulfilled. We are entrepreneurs.
The question is not which category you find yourself in. The question is whether you are in the right category at all.
Be honest with yourself. It is the only way you can change the world.
