What's Your Calling?

A pitcher cries for water to carry, and a person for work that is Real - Marge Piercy

Next month my office will move to another location which will be 6 miles farther from where we are now. I am a bit sad and a lot angry about it. I'm not really angry with the company because they have to do what they have to do to survive in this economy, but I am mad at myself because as much as I hate driving that far, there's nothing I hate more than looking for another job if I choose not to move with them.

I am mad because this move is rocking my boat: I don't want to move and I don't want to look for another job, so once again, I am forced to look and reassess my life. On my deathbed and I am asked, "Is this the job you want to be found dead in?" My answer would be an emphatic "no." So why not change?

When Clare Booth Luce reflected about her life and confessed, "If I were to write my autobiography, my title would be The Autobiography of a Failure." What in the world is she talking about? Not only did she have money, she had fame as an American playwright, and influence as a US ambassador. And if that wasn't enough, she was also married to the publishing magnate of Time and Life magazine.

But I understand what she meant. When people say they're a failure, it's because they are not doing what God has created them to do or not following their true calling. Luce had to sublimate her passion for theater writing to accomodate the duty of a politician. Her husband wanted her in politics, she didn't. " I would say my worst failure, paradoxically, was a rather long-drawn-out series of relative successes, none of which were in theater. In other words, my failure was not to return to the real vocation I had, which was writing. I don't remember from childhood ever wanting to do or be anything except a writer."

Like Luce, I also know that I am not doing what I was born to do, but I am too lazy, too afraid and too set in my ways to change my course. So until I get the balls, I'll just be sailing in my paper boat in this plastic world.