Vocation: Accepting the Gift of Who We Are

Let  Your Life Speak (by Parker Palmer) has been a refreshing book to read as I reflect on my life - the paths that led me to where I am today, the jobs I've had and the interests I'm currently pursuing.

In a recent post, I mentioned Palmer's idea about accepting our limitations - and working within them.

A related aspect of vocation that should be obvious - but often isn't - is that, to be happy in our work, we have to accept the gift of who we are:

Today I understand vocation... not as a goal to be achieved but as a gift to be received. Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I already possess... It comes from a voice "in here" calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God.

It is a strange gift, this birthright of self. Accepting it turns out to be even more demanding than attempting to become someone else...

Reading this, I think of all the jobs I attempted and left, the jobs I applied for and didn't get, the jobs I never pursued, though I wanted to - and the parts of my work as a teacher that were extremely difficult for me, and the parts I loved.

I also think about a conversation I had with my mother when I was still in high school, applying for my first year at university. Looking at all the programs that the university offered, I was drawn to the study of art...

This is interesting, I told my mother.

That's for people who don't need to earn a living, she replied. You need to study something practical...

And so I studied languages... But now, all these years later, I am still drawn to pottery, quilting, and other tactile (sometimes practical) art.

How would my life have been different if I had studied art instead of languages? I wonder. Would I have been able to earn a living? 

Maybe it doesn't really matter what I studied... True - inborn - interests always win out in the end!

Thinking of this conversation with my mother reminds me of the dozens of times I've also urged my children to be "practical" - (for their own good)!! Will they, too, someday think I  held them back?!

While we're working on accepting the gift of who we are, can we also accept the gift of who our children are - not just what we want them to be?!

Accepting Our Limitations

Teachers and parents encourage young people to "reach for the stars"  in their careers - and so they should. But few mention the other aspect of finding satisfying work - accepting our limitations.

Parker Palmer addresses this subject in his book, Let Your Life Speak, subtitled, Listening for the Voice of Vacation.

If we are to live our lives fully and well, we must learn to embrace the opposites, to live in a creative tension between our limits and our potentials. We must honor our limitations in ways that do not distort our nature, and we must trust and use our gifts in ways that fulfill the potentials God gave us. We must take the no of the way that closes and find the guidance it has to offer - and take the yes of the way that opens and respond with the yes of our lives.

As I read his words, I regret that I hadn't realized this "simple, healthy, and life-giving truth about vocation" when I was teaching and talking to students about future plans. I experienced my own limitations - even in high school - where I chose to take language courses instead of history, math or science. But I didn't see them as limitations, but rather, as failings.

Later, as a teacher, I recognized that my best teaching self came out, not when I was teaching young children, adolescents or teens, but when I taught English to adult immigrants.

Accepting our limitations is key in many aspects of life. Even in relationships. Years ago, someone observed that I was a "big picture" person, while Terry focuses on details. Yes, that's why we don't always see eye to eye!

Even in hobbies, like quilting... Recognizing what my limitations are may take time, but eventually I have come to realize that I hate fiddly details like matching corners or points... So those are things I should avoid in quilting...

I may love a quilt that looks like this one on the left... But it has too many corners to match. I'd end up frustrated.

I'd be better off with squares that don't have to be precise, like this!

Or this...

Strange to think that it's taken me so long to realize that my weaknesses - things I can't do well - aren't  failings - but simply limitations! (And that it's possible to work around them!)

Understanding Our Restless Selves

Retirement offers me the gift of being able to ask daily: How do I want to spend my day? This is a luxury I haven't had since I was five, since before starting school! An opportunity not to be wasted!

In her book on the "search for a life of passion, purpose, and joy" (entitled Following the Path), Joan Chittister writes: "what we are meant to do in life never really stops biting at our heels. Our unfinished selves never stop calling to us...

"People start to search out what they're most interested in as children... It may take years for the heart to find the soul of itself, to know what that really is, but it will happen. Someday... People begin to paint when they are eighty...

"We are what we are, but the gift of self unfolds only as we go... It can take years before it becomes clear - the real gift that is hidden within us... 

"Developing the honesty it takes to unmask the self to the self is no small task..."