Following One's Calling

An excerpt from Called By Name by Robert Furey (The Crossroad Publishing Co., NY: 2000) - a book that I can honestly say changed my life.

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There are certain rewards that go to all those who move toward their visions, blessings collected when one walks the right road. * * *

Among the rewards given to those who walk the right road are focus, energy, significance, courage, empowerment, accomplishment, honesty, identity, spirituality, acceptance, love, and freedom. Although they may come in different sequences to different people, they all reach those who have earned them. Those with the determination to move toward their visions receive the qualities and the character needed to accomplish everything their vision asks.

First, a calling is about focus. In a world filled with distractions, a calling makes one aspect of life stand out above all the rest. It pulls and makes a sound that only you can hear, as if it knew your personal language. It moves you away from the prison of other people's expectations as you find your own self-expectation. Focus comes with a triumphant shout that screams, "This is my life!" A person without focus is someone who has not yet heard his or her calling. But remember, a calling comes in its own time. Until then it is our job to learn as much as we can. When our visions emerge, we choose whether or not to move toward them. If we move toward them, we find our focus getting clearer and stronger and the distractions falling away.

As our focus becomes stronger, our energy increases. It may be called tenacity, perseverance, determination, or enthusiasm. Whatever its form, energy is one of the clearest and most accurate indicators that you are on the right track. When you find your mission, you also find the energy you need to make it happen. You find the power you need to make your life's work significant. This is important. Sooner or later we reach a point where we review what we have accomplished in our lives. Some of us try hard to keep this question out of consciousness. Realizing that one has spent one's life in an endeavor that one does not value can be devastating. To avoid the devastation one may try to avoid the question. This avoidance, however, requires a great deal of mental energy, energy that could be spent productively.

Our callings represent the work that makes our lives meaningful to us; that work makes our lives couunt; it gives our life significance. This means finding what needs to be done and doing it, whether that be as a Girl Scout troop leader or as a stay-at-home father. Your calling is the mission that makes your life significant and meaningful to you. You decide if what you are doing is significant. You live with the consequences.

If you find missions that make your life significant, you will be rewarded with the courage to carry them out. Courage then builds as you go. You gather courage as you move towards your vision. First you gain the courage needed to take small risks; as your valor grows you may become almost undaunted by fear. At this point you have made quite a spiritual breakthrough. You have reached the place where your calling is more moving than your fear.

Courage serves as the foundation for personal empowerment. Empowerment means taking charge of your life. It's the feeling of being in control of the things that matter most. Empowerment also reflects the confidence that you can live with those flaws and limitations that you cannot erase. It's the understanding that you can have the power in spite of your limitations. You can even be empowered by your limitations because they have so much to teach.

Empowerment is the refusal to allow other people to tell you who you are. It's the release of the defiant power of the human spirit. It is one of the feelings that come with the awareness that you have found your road, your niche, your place. Empowerment is the understanding that you have everything you need to learn how to do the things you need to do.

If you move toward your vision, you will find everything you need to be successful; you will find accomplishment. By "success" I mean success in the deepest sense of the word. You may be called to be an elementary school basketball coach. You may work your hardest to be the best coach you can be. You may never win a single game and yet still be very successful at this calling. Being called to be an elementary school may have little or nothing to do with basketball. It may be all about shaping the character of young human beings.

In order to understand sucess and accomplishment, you have to understand the true nature of your calling. Sometimes it's buried beneath distractions. These distractions often come in the form of pseudofailures. A pseudofailure is an experience that may be thoroughly discouraging until you learn that what you lost is insignificant. Experiences like this can teach us what really matters.

If you follow your callings, you will be successful. You will be triumphant (though often in a quiet way). You will know the victory of being true to yourself. You will know the satisfaction of having contributed to the universe, even if you never win a single basketball game. It won't be an embarassment that you're not surrounded by trophies. You won't need them. The real successes are the ones you feel deep inside. They occur when you know you've done the right thing. Instead of rewards you may receive criticism. Keep in mind that criticism doesn't necessarily mean you're wrong; it only means that you're doing something that your critics don't want you to do.

If you are true to your calling, you may disappoint a few critics along the way. Following a calling is a journey in honesty. Who you are may not be acceptable to some. But with your eyes on your goal you realize that critics are usually only distrcations anyway. Living honestly means living with the conviction that you are not going to live anyone else's life. You are honest with the world and honest with yourself. You are committed to what is right and make the contributions you have been asked to make. As you move along the path of your calling, honesty becomes easier and feels more natural.

As this path unfolds and honesty becomes more and more a way of life, your identity becomes clearer. Before you began your search for your calling you may have noticed how other people sometimes try to tell you who you are. Now that you've come close enough to feel its pull, your awareness is redirected. Now you are more aware of what you want to do with your time on earth. This is the point, as President Bush remarked, at which God introduces you to yourself. Your social world no longer defines you. Your spiritual world - your spirituality - is now producing the guidance.

As your identity emerges so does your personal power. You are aware that you have a direction and your own set of standards to meaure your progress. You are no longer dependent on the approval of others. You have become a force unto yourself, a force capable of accomplishing great things. I believe in the truth of what Charlotte Davis Kasl wrote in her book Many Roads, One Journey: "Our souls become liberated when we dare to dream, and the happiest, most content and interesting people I know are those who follow their calling."

We reach a breakthrough moment in our lives when we accept our callings. This moment may be a long time coming, but when it does come, we experience a conversion. We can never really accept ourselves until we accept our visions. But when we reach the point where we find peace in our callings (no matter how challenging they may be), we also find a genuine acceptance of ourselves. This acceptance recognizes all the flaws, limitations, and mood swings that come with being human. It's honest self-acceptance without the need for perfection.

Once individuals accept themselves, they can begin to love themselves. Once they accept their callings, they can begin to love their lives. This is one of the essential aspects of the conversion. Acceptance opens the door to love. Since callings lead people to the service of life, one could make a strong argument that the work of a calling is fueled by love. One could also make an equally intelligent argument that callings create their own fuel. People true to their callings are capable of giving love. Their love goes into their work and the people they serve. They share it, and it comes back to them even stronger.

Finally, there is freedom. This is actually quite a paradox because it would seem that a calling would restrict one's freedom. After all, if the road chooses you, how can you call yourself free? Well, first of all, anyone can refuse a calling. No one is forced to follow. Even though the echose of your calling may haunt you, you can build a lifestyle designed to drown out the voices. Many do. But freedom means nothing if you are not able to be true to yourself. Real freedom is about being free to be you. It does not mean being able to be and do anything you want. Real freedom means being free to be one thing - who and what you are meant to be. No one is freer than the person who can become who he or she is meant to be. You may never knowwhy you have been given a particular calling. But you will never know true freedom until you allow yourself to be what you have been called to be."