STUMP » Articles » My Vocation: figure stuff out and tell other people » 16 August 2015, 08:33

I’ve been reading stuff on medium.com — I originally got there reading pieces from @munilass (Kristi Culpepper).

As a result, I get an email digest of stories, and I’m sure it’s following me, serving up the types of posts I’m more interested in and less of what I’m not. Or maybe it’s just randomness. It’s not my business, so I don’t really care. I’m on so many news/email feeds, if my attention isn’t grabbed (BY THIS ONE EASY TRICK, YOU WON’T BELIEVE IT!), I just move on.

I came across this post, via another responding to it.

I will excerpt:

Right now, I’m working to live; but, I live to work. I have a mission, people.

I write fairy tales without the lame-isms (outdated social values) because we are storytelling creatures because that’s the best way to get information stuck in people’s heads while connecting with one another.

I write poetry about whatever the hell I want because we are passionate creatures because we have souls (or maybe share one soul, I’m a Catechist, but I’m still a bit fuzzy on what I believe there) and all the humanity we contain is nothing if our souls aren’t touched from time to time.

I want to help people change the stories we tell for better tomorrows for everyone. I want to help people to express themselves in whatever way makes the most sense for them.

I’m on a mission of words, people. I will push through to the end no matter how many diapers I have to change; no matter how many nights I cry myself to sleep because I did not publish something that morning; and, no matter how many people tell me The Blues Brothers are terrible role models.

I’m “on a mission from God”
and I don’t need a vocation
(sanctified, accredited, or otherwise official)
to know that’s the truth.

Now, that she has this mission doesn’t really make me all that interested in reading her stuff (I definitely don’t need help in telling my own story). However, I understand having a vocation – what are you “called” to do.

Often, this has nothing to do with what you actually get paid to do, as in this author’s case.

I determined my own vocation a very long time ago — it was to figure stuff out, or learn new things and then go tell other people about it. Obviously, this is done primarily with words. Sometimes it takes the form of explicit teaching, and other times it’s showing my kids how to crochet. On my blogs, it’s talking about public pensions or public finance. In my non-paid writing I cover spreadsheet best practices and leadership books.

In my day job, I have to figure out stuff going on in the life-annuity industry and write about that.

When I get paid to do something, I figure out the stuff those paying me want to know, and then I tell them it. When I don’t get paid, I write/talk about the stuff I consider important.

This is not everybody’s mission — some have a mission to tell stories (this woman’s vocation), to fix things, to care for others — there are so many things out there that we slap a label on, and some people seem to think that labelless vocations are somehow not real.

It can take time to find what you’re called to do, especially if you’re spending that time listening to others tell you what you’re “supposed to be” or “supposed to do.”

My recommendation, if you haven’t yet found a mission, is to go out and try a bunch of things. Don’t be afraid that some of these things will fail. I have failed at many things before I figured out what I needed to be doing. I may yet fail at more, but that is not going to stop me pursuing what I am called to do.

And if you think that you have no mission at all, Milton has something to tell you:

They also serve who only stand and wait

cross-posted to livejournal