Our personal experience of life is truly amazing when we find and live our calling. Let’s compare the experience of life with our calling and life without our calling.
Life Without Our Calling
When we haven’t found our calling, it may be that we’ve not found something that uses our strengths at least a little bit every day. All day long we’re involved in activities that we’re not particularly good at. We may not be bad at it either, but it doesn’t line up in the center of our greatest strengths. We may even put in a herculean effort, but the results just don’t impress. We remain pretty much average. Life lived this way makes us feel like we’re nobody special.
When we haven’t found our calling, it may be that we’ve not found something about which we are passionate. So, we lack motivation. We are just doing things because we feel like we have to – we need the money, we need to appease our spouse, or whatever the reason. So we put in just enough effort to get by, but this is far from experiencing a victory or a breakthrough. Life seems pretty plain and boring.
When we haven’t found our calling, it may be that we’ve not found something that leaves a lasting positive impact in the world. Everything we do is either a transaction of equal exchange or it’s for our own benefit. We’re not in a spirit of giving, serving or contributing. When we really understand in our inmost being that life is short, this approach to life no longer works for us. The statement, “When I’m gone, the world will be exactly the same,” is a pretty depressing thought. Life seems meaningless.
I can’t imagine anything more depressing than living outside of my strengths for things that I don’t care about with no lasting effects beyond my life. I’m glad this isn’t my life today.
Living Our Calling
When we have found our calling, and we are living it, we get to use our strengths every day. We get “rockstar” status because we are doing things easily and naturally that are a struggle for many others. We care deeply about the the things in which we’re engaged. Our activity lines up with our passions. We feel satisfied that we will outlive our life.
When we’ve found our calling, we know what our life is about and what we want to accomplish while we’re here on this earth. Instead of life happening to us, we show up and we “happen” to those around us. Our experience of life is, “This is it!”
Have you thought about your calling in life? If so, what are your top 3 guesses for your calling, or are you no longer guessing because you know? Leave a comment and tell us about it.
