Finding Your Calling In Life: Why You Need a Vocation

In the post-apocalyptic world of Mad Max, we see a society where men have few opportunities to find something they are genuinely good at. Yet there is still hope that one day the survivors will be able to rebuild and flourish again without any vocation in mind.

The “how to find your vocation quiz” is a test that will help you figure out what you’re meant to do with your life. The test is from the website “Finding Your Calling In Life: Why You Need a Vocation.”

This is the third installment in a three-part series on determining one’s vocation. Part I and Part II may be found here.

Why should a guy choose a career path? Is it truly worth the effort? Shouldn’t a guy be content to perform any profession that permits him to maintain his family and make a living? Is looking for your calling a self-serving endeavor?

Today, I’m going to try to address those concerns and make the case for why pursuing one’s career should be the most important thing in a man’s life. In doing so, I’ll be advocating for a larger philosophy of life, of which vocation is an important component.

The Purpose of Life and Self-Actualization

What is the point of living? It’s an age-old question that’s been addressed in far too many ways to count. I’d like to propose one response to which I wholeheartedly agree.

One of the greatest goals of life, in my opinion, is to grow and develop to the fullest degree possible, to be challenged, to push your faculties to their limits, to maximize all of your potential, in short, to become all that you can be, to use a hackneyed term.

Most religions can accommodate and benefit from this striving to become “godlike.” For a Christian, it is an acknowledgement of each person’s divine potential. As C.S. Lewis put it:

“It’s a serious thing to live in a society of prospective gods and goddesses, to remember that the most boring and uninteresting person you speak to may one day be a creature you’d be inclined to adore if you saw it right now… There are no such things as ‘ordinary’ individuals. You’ve never conversed with a simple mortal.”

Exploring and expanding one’s capabilities might become the primary aim of life for atheists. “He who has a why to live can tolerate practically any how,” Friedrich Nietzsche stated.

Living to become all that we can in an era of anomie is an enormously compelling why for every guy.

Self-actualization, as defined by famous psychologist Abraham Maslow, is the process through which humans might achieve “full humaneness.” He remarked, “What a man can be, he must be.” Maslow’s thoughts on the issue are immensely profound, and because I can’t expect to do better than him, I’ll be quoting him frequently here.

According to Maslow,

“There is an active desire toward health, a drive toward progress, or toward the realization of human potentialities in almost every human being.” But we are immediately struck with the heartbreaking reality that so few individuals succeed…even in a culture like ours, which is arguably one of the most privileged on the planet. This is our huge enigma…. This is our new way of addressing the issue of humanness, namely, with a profound respect of its greatest potential and a deep sadness that these potentials are so seldom fulfilled. This approach contrasts with the “realistic” acceptance of whatever occurs, and then reclassifying it as the norm… We have a tendency to believe that…this normality or averageness is the most we can hope for and that we should be satisfied with it. Normalcy, from the perspective I’ve articulated, would be the type of disease, crippling, or stunting that we share with everyone else and hence don’t notice.”

Embracing the premise that self-actualization is one of life’s major objectives necessitates accepting the belief that every human being contains a desire to develop. If you don’t accept this idea, you won’t be able to accept the remainder of what we’ve presented today. If you accept this concept, it follows that genuine fulfillment comes from optimizing this progress, and that being satisfied with averageness deprives us of the transcendent contentment and happiness that might have been ours. Maslow issued a warning:

“I warn you that if you set out to be less than you are capable of being, you will be extremely unhappy for the rest of your life.” You’ll be avoiding your own capabilities and opportunities.”

Self-Awareness and Choosing a Career

According to Maslow, achieving self-actualization entails:

“proceeds inexorably via recognition of one’s own individuality” (among other things). One of the most significant aspects of this endeavor is to become conscious of who one is as a member of a species, physiologically, temperamentally, constitutionally, in terms of one’s talents, interests, and needs, as well as one’s vocation, or what one is suited for, or what one’s destiny is.”

Working at a vocation, the last stage, was what Maslow saw in every single self-actualized person he met. Self-actualized people, he discovered, were strongly committed to a cause outside of themselves, a task that they felt compelled to accomplish and that provided them enormous pleasure.

Many men now believe that discovering their calling entails doing something that will make them wealthy and famous, such as becoming a rock star or writing the great American book. And the notion of self-actualization may contribute to this misunderstanding. As a result, it’s important to note that everyone’s potential will peak at various times. The key thing is to just push yourself to whatever your particular limitations are. Self-actualization is a very personal experience; your best is not the same as someone else’s best.

Remember, your vocation isn’t your work; it’s what you offer to it—your special skills and abilities. As a result, self-actualization entails seeking out possibilities that will enable you to fully use your skills and abilities.

Increasing Your Practicality

I feel fired up and excited about life when I think about the objective of maximizing all of my potential. It’s a notion that helps me come out of melancholy funks and get back on my feet.

But I recognize that not every guy is interested in philosophy or psychology. So I wanted to provide a part with more practical explanations for the importance of following a passion.

Happiness and good health. Ignoring your calling may lead to worry, agitation, and sadness. Putting your skills and abilities to good use provides a feeling of pleasure and contentment that cannot be matched. It also improves your peak experiences and flow possibilities.

True, I know guys, and I’m sure you do as well, who work in occupations that aren’t right for them in order to earn a living, and they put on a pleasant front on the outside. However, I often see these men’s fury at less guarded times, such as road rage, excessive drinking, and resentment of others. It may physically eat away at you on the inside. Monday mornings see more heart attacks than any other day of the week, when men return to jobs they despise and their blood pressure rises.

More accomplishments. We frequently identify professions with employment where individuals barely make ends meet but continue to work because they like it. That is certainly true at times, yet doing what you love may lead to your greatest achievement. The CEO of The Onion (now that’s a fun job) was asked in an interview with the New York Times what advise he would offer to someone who had just graduated from college. He said, “

“Find out what you really like doing, and then go for it with zeal.” Also, don’t be concerned about the financial situation. Because what you like doing is often what you excel at. And what you’re excellent at will almost certainly pay you financially in the long run. I’ve seen far too many individuals plotting a professional path, and most of the time, all that’s behind it is a stack of cash money. You must be happy in order to be successful, and you must be successful in order to be happy. And there’s a strong possibility you’ll be compensated if you succeed.”

Frugality and freedom. The distinction between job and pleasure/life is blurred for a guy who has discovered his real calling. His play is his work, and his work is his play. Money, income, vacation, hobbies, recreation, and enjoyment all lose their significance as a result.

Staying in a dead end job is frequently perceived as the more practical option, yet the concept of vocation also has an enticing pragmatism. The guy who works in the job he despises may earn more money on occasion, but he also spends more money in order to compensate for how unhappy he is at work. He needs to do things that make him unhappy in order to earn money to pay for things that make him happy. A guy with a vocation, on the other hand, is actually thrifty. He isn’t living for the next trip; he doesn’t need a large screen television to be happy; and he isn’t paying a therapist and a doctor to take care of his deteriorating mental and physical health. He doesn’t need much to get by, which is genuine liberty.

Service, responsibility, and duty

We’ve spent a lot of time talking about you and what you want to accomplish with your life so far. But shouldn’t your profession also help others and make the world a better place? How do you strike a balance between your drive for self-actualization and your obligations in life?

Thankfully, these two things go hand in hand in the perfect world. When your inner self is joined with your exterior self, when your inner desires are united with your outer acts, you may genuinely be of service to the world. This is what Maslow refers to as the “ideal” meeting of inner (or “want to”) and outside (or “must”) requirements. “The location God leads you to is the spot where your deep happiness and the world’s deep hunger meet,” Frederick Buechner says.

Living a lie, fitting a square peg into a round hole, harms not just you, but also people you love and work with and for. Everyone has experienced the aggravation of being on a team with a person who is there because he believes he “ought” to be or “should” be there, but has no desire to be. He goes through the motions, but everyone is dragged down by him. “If you are here unfaithfully with us, you are creating severe harm,” the Sufi poet Rumi properly admonished such a guy.

It is not selfish to pursue your profession; it is selfish to deprive the world of what you may have accomplished with your abilities and talents.

Having stated that, I feel that personal passions come second to duty and responsibilities. It’s not macho to abandon your family because you’ve decided that working in a touring circus is your real calling, or to quit your job to go film school when you have a mortgage to pay.

“The road to a greater opportunity is never meanly crawling out from beneath the tiny obligation of today,” wrote Edward Howard Griggs in “Vocation and Avocation,” “but climbing fearlessly through it and over the top; and then the better chance invariably arrives.” You may need to work part-time until you can leave your day job; you may need to find a way to express your abilities in your avocation; or you may just need to look for additional possibilities in your present employment that enable you to utilize your particular strengths. A hardworking guy who understands how to hustle may find a decent method to combine his responsibilities and his interests.

Fathers may sometimes justify working in a profession they despise in order to enable their children to pursue their goals. The trouble is that their dads, and their ancestors before them, frequently said the same thing. The chain must be broken by someone. A parent must be an example of what he wants his children to be. Why are you allowing your children to play little if you don’t want them to? Part I of Finding Your Calling: What Is a Vocation? Discovering Your Purpose Part II: Vocation’s Myths and Realities Discovering Your Purpose Why Pursue a Vocation, Part III? Part IV: Discovering Your Vocation in Finding Your Calling Part V of Finding Your Calling: Overcoming Obstacles to Embracing Your Calling

The “how to discover the vocation god is preparing for you” is a blog post about how to find your calling in life. It includes tips, advice and stories from people who were able to find their calling.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is it important to find your vocation?

A: It is important to find your vocation for many reasons. One reason would be that you will get a chance at a job, which may pay better than working in another field or career path. Another reason is because in the future there might not be jobs available as unemployment rates increase and more people are forced into part time work just to make ends meet.