"It's so extra" — Five lies that keep us from our calling
THE FIVE LIES
There are five lies that we tuck into on a regular basis which keep us from recognising and following our calling. Let’s pick them apart and, in the process, discover how the truth is much better than we imagine.
Isn’t it just about what I want?—Five lies that keep us from our calling
It’s so extra—Five lies that keep us from our calling
This is number five in the Five Lies That Keep Us From Our Calling series.
THE LIE: IT’S SO EXTRA
Imagine this.
You see an ad online for a “ditch digger”. But there’s something curious about it. The job is to “show up at the worksite each day, dig a deep ditch by hand with a shovel and fill it in again afterwards.” Hmm.
Now, we have no idea why they are asking you to spend your days on this pointless task, but the question is, how much would a job like this have to pay you before it is worthwhile?
It’s a tricky question, isn’t it?
Day after day of back-breaking, pointless work, for nothing except money? It would have to be a lot, right?
It would have to be a lot because it is demoralising. It’s demoralising to waste our time, and it’s demoralising to know that we’re working on something pointless.
Now, maybe you’re not fully convinced yet. But that doesn’t matter, because the sadists who ran the Nazi concentration camps of World War Two were.
It is said that prisoners were forced to spend their day digging a deep trench, and just when they were exhausted, as people were collapsing from hunger and starvation, they’d be forced to fill it back in again.
In a weird way, by subjecting prisoners to this torturous work on pain of death, they were recognising this central need of purpose and meaning in human nature. They knew that if they were to demoralise their prisoners, the best way to do it was to teach them that there was no purpose to their lives now.
I say this, because it can be easy to hear about our calling and our vocation, and think that it’s unrealistic somehow. A bit too good to be true. Or, maybe with all this talk about being made for some higher purpose, it just starts to sound self-indulgent. A bit extra. A bit impractical and disconnected from the needs of everyday life.
I get it.
It’s a problem I’ve been wrestling with too. But I think it’s rooted in a lie.
A lie that we are dualistic beings. That we have our physical needs over here: we have to sleep and take painkillers and wipe our arses. And those needs come first. And then we have these loftier, intangible, spiritual needs over there. And they can seem so intangible, and philosophical and far off.
And it’s debatable whether these ‘spiritual’ needs are even real at all. Whereas there is no question that we live in the real world, with pavements and taxes and nappies that need changing. People have got to eat! What’s all this purpose stuff got to do with me? I don’t have time to waste thinking about these lofty things.
But this is not right, for it is true that “man cannot live on bread alone”.
We cannot separate the practical from the purposeful. When we try to sideline these “spiritual” needs, in favour of being more practical and down to earth, we run into all sorts of problems. If we ignore these needs long enough, they will drain the life out of everything else, undermining our desire to be useful, practical and responsible.
Ultimately, our calling is a vital component of our overall wellbeing, one that cannot be ignored forever. Especially if we want to be a down to earth person. A demoralised man is not a moral man. By definition, to be demoralised means that we no longer want to do the right thing. And what use are we then?
In his book The Call, Os Guinness takes this point to the next level. He argues that the concept of calling and vocation played a crucial role in the development of Western society. In fact, he believes that it was this very idea that gave the West the edge over other cultures and allowed it to become the vanguard of the modern world.
The Chinese, for example, were a highly advanced civilisation in many ways, but they did not have a concept of calling or vocation like that which emerged in the West. As a result, they did not have the same framework for imbuing menial work with honour and purpose that the West did. This was a key factor in the West's success, as it allowed people to find meaning and fulfillment in all kinds of work, rather than just in specific “noble” professions or roles.
So the concept of calling and vocation is not only important for individual fulfilment, but also for the flourishing of society as a whole. When people are able to find meaning and purpose in their daily work, they are more likely to be motivated, committed, and innovative, which can lead to greater success and progress.
So, there is this practical, social, communal side to it too.
Following our calling—finding higher purpose in our everyday life—is not a self-indulgent middle-class frippery, it’s a vital part of human flourishing.
So if you were waiting for permission to take it seriously, this is it.
Godspeed,
T Mo