Start Quote
There is a significant difference between
a job, a career, and a calling.
Jobs are what we do to keep bodies, souls, and families together.
But as Studs Terkel wisely points out...
daily meaning is as important as daily bread,
and recognition as necessary as cash.
For when we work, we are searching "for a sort of life
rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying."
One of the people Studs Terkel interviewed was Nora Watson...
[who said] "I think most of us are looking for a calling, not a job.
Most of us, like the assembly line worker,
have jobs that are too small for our spirit.
Jobs are not big enough for people."
But jobs are crucial;
we need to "earn a living,"
which becomes more difficult each day
in the uncertain economic climate of the 1990s.
A career can be a calling,
but not necessarily.
Usually a career occurs when we stick to an occupational path
- accounting, advertising, nursing, publishing -
because we do what we do quite well and get paid for doing it.
Sometimes careers resemble long-standing marriages
in which passion is exchanged for comfort, security,
and predictability in an uncertain world.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with this choice;
for many women it is absolutely the right one
- though some may wonder what psychic price
is being exacted for playing it safe...
Many of us eventually move from jobs to careers,
but often we hesitate to answer an authentic calling...
because we're torn -
between the financial realities of raising children
and caring for aging parents,
between a proven track record and the unknown,
between a regular paycheck and uncertainty,
between circumstance and creative choice.
But it's a mistake to accept as our reality
the illusion that many are called to fulfillment
but few are chosen...
The truth is, we're all chosen...
Novelist Mary Morris tells us that
"Pursuing what you want to do and achieving your goal
is not like finding the burning bush or discovering a gold mine.
There are usually no epiphanies,
no sudden reversals of fortune...
Fullfilment comes in many guises,
and it can come to us in our lives at any time...
But only we can make sure we will be fulfilled.
If we feel empty, no amount of water can fill our well.
It has to come from within,
from the underground springs and streams."
End Quote
In the next couple of days
we're going to talk more about this.
I know what my calling is.
My calling is to be a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend,
and eventually a physical therapist.
I count myself very lucky and very blessed
that I get to live my callings.
And I'm doing everything in my power
to make sure my husband, my family, and my friends
get to find and live theirs too.
***
Gratitude Journal
***
1) A washer and dryer. I have done at least four loads of laundry, and have at least 3 to go, on top of our normal stuff. If I had to do it all by hand I might just go crazy.
2) Oxiclean and Odoban.
3) Bed time. I'm so excited, I'm ready to put that last load in the dryer and get my butt to bed.
4) My Purple mattress. This was the first year that going camping I wasn't able to sleep well on the air mattress. I don't know if it was because it was almost unbearably hot for being at the beach, or if I just missed my mattress. I slept so well last night, and I can't wait to get back to it.
5) Good TV, it makes doing laundry so much more bearable.
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