Something was bugging me.
Everyone else seemed to love the highly polished presentation we’d just seen from a big-name graphic designer, who I will not name for obvious reasons. It was one stop on his tour of the UK promoting his impressive new book. But as I left the lecture theatre something was playing on my mind.
He kept saying “this is the most fundamental thing”.
And, I mean, it’s a common phrase. But he kept saying it. 3, 4, 5 times!? By the end, I was counting them. Surely only one thing can be “the most fundamental thing”? “Maybe he’s just careless with his words?” I thought. Or maybe he’s just loosely collected these things together without consideration to which one (if any) is actually the most fundamental concern to the topic. Surely that could be forgiven, couldn’t it?
Well, yes but where does that leave me with how seriously to treat his thoughts on the topic overall?
Exactly how much has this lecture been planned, and how much of it is just a projection of the current moods and obsessions of the person who happens to be on stage? I began to have a bit of a queasy feeling.
In the end, after confiding in a friend about said queasy feeling, I was able to admit that I was quite unimpressed.
I couldn’t shake that what we had witnessed was a perfect example of an all-too-common phenomenon. That strange tendency we have to make the current thing the most important thing. To turn our latest obsession into the only thing worthy of interest. We find one thing that helps us, and we want to make it the only thing that the whole world needs.
I see this tendency in myself from time to time, and as a teacher, I do my best to protect others from it.
It’s for this reason, that I am concerned with applying these same questions to the limits of vocation. How do we think about purpose and vocation, especially when as a topic, it can legitimately be considered to be trying to get down to the bottom of things? It’s about our very purpose for life after all. And as a somewhat buzz-word in self-help circles, there’s even more reason to be wary of making it into something it’s not.
So we want to treat it seriously and acknowledge the profound impact that having a purpose (even a higher purpose) can have in our life, while also being careful to not go overboard and making it into something that it isn’t. We don’t want to make following your calling the ‘most fundamental thing’ today; only to throw it out next week when our interests and circumstances change.
Well, I’ve been trying to find this balance myself and I think I have something to help place it in its proper context. It’s not sexy, and it’s deceptively simple. But it does help.
Out of nowhere, someone in my church lent me this little workbook called God’s Plan For Your Well-being.
I flipped through the different sections to find five categories of well-being. First physical, then emotional, spiritual, relational, financial and, right at the back, vocational.
At first, I admit that there was something humbling about this. Vocation is just an aspect of well-being? And it’s left until last, like a footnote? Hmm. But the more I thought about it, the more it just seemed so obviously right.
If we take any of these aspects of well-being and make them the magic bullet to solve all of our problems, we will be left disappointed and unfulfilled. But if we can resist the urge to make any one of these one things a panacea, then we can say both things at once: yes, it is indispensable and necessary, but it’s also not everything.
It’s like with the flourishing of plants: yes, water is indispensable and necessary to the growth of plants, but it’s not everything. They also need nutrients and sunlight to fully thrive.
So it is with purpose. It isn’t everything, and we should resist this desire to make finding our calling our ‘one thing’ that will solve all our problems. But, I also see all around me, that there is a particular cultural dynamic which is leaving us starved for direction and a sense of being used for a greater purpose — a sense of calling.
We should resist this desire to make finding our calling our ‘one thing’
that will solve all our problems
So if, like me, you are feeling drawn to find greater purpose in your life and work; then we can say “yes!” to our calling, “yes!” to more meaningful work, “yes!” to exercising our unique gifts, while also “yes!” to maintaining health, finances and relationships.
None of these things should be sacrificed on the altar of purpose, unless for a specific circumstance and for a limited time, lest we find ourselves becoming that silicon valley cliche: the entrepreneur who embodies every aspect of career success, while leaving a trail of broken relationships behind them. I think this is an inevitable conclusion if we worship vocation to the extremes, and fortunately, we don’t have to do this.
So there you go: purpose is necessary, but it’s not everything.
And finally, a pleasant thought to finish on. If we return to the metaphor of the plant for a moment, then purpose is to humanity, like sunlight is to plants - it gives us something to grow towards.
And we grow much better when we have a direction to go in.
Godspeed,
T Mo.