Tag: serendipity

Finding Your One Thing: Discernment in a World of Career Noise

Students often struggle to balance passion with practicality in career decisions, influenced by financial obligations and societal expectations. Many enter careers accidentally, through apathy, or via social pressure, leading to dissatisfaction. Encouraging thoughtful reflection on values and proactive choices can guide students toward fulfilling career paths aligned with their true vocations.

a woman with rope tied around her body
Photo by Ron Lach on Pexels.com

One of the challenges for our students in making vocational and career decisions is finding the appropriate balance between passion and practicality. While the pursuit of one’s passion is often considered the ideal, the realities of modern life—with its multitude of well-meaning voices, financial obligations, and family concerns—frequently necessitate more pragmatic choices. This tension creates a dynamic in which vocational aspirations and career decisions are continuously evolving and being reconciled.

Vocation often has spiritual and philosophical connotations. And even though we often use career interchangeably with vocation and calling, there are important distinctions between these words. Careers are frequently regarded as more pragmatic and of lesser importance, with the implication that vocation, and especially calling, hold greater depth. I would contend that one’s career also merits deep reflection and discernment. Today, a career is understood as the journey or path one takes in their professional life. While vocation speaks to the inner call, career offers a different context that includes steps taken to build one’s life’s work. Our careers, although distinct from our vocations, can be the means through which we express our vocations or callings. In this context, our careers should also be the result of deep thought and discernment.

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The Vocational Power of Serendipitous Reading

This post reflects on the writer’s journey as a young artist, discussing the importance of mentorship and serendipitous reading. It advocates exploring texts outside the vocational canon to enrich understanding and foster interesting conversations. Examples of insightful biographies highlight how stories can enhance theoretical knowledge, emphasizing the role of wonder in vocational discernment.

Once upon a time, when I was a young painter just beginning a graduate program, a generous pastor and theologian invited me into a mentoring relationship when he noticed I was reading James Atlas’ biography of the American poet and writer Delmore Schwartz (1913-1966). Lou Reed had written a song I liked—“My House” on The Blue Mask, released in 1982—about his friend and teacher Schwartz, so I wanted to know more about Schwartz’s life. My mentor and I soon discovered we shared an interest in listening to music, and the following Christmas, he gifted me a copy of Schwartz’s In Dreams Begin Responsibilities.

At that time, I was also struggling with what I understood to be my calling as a young artist, and I was still a long way away from thinking about vocation as a collection of concepts. My mentor counseled me to think of my calling as service and doxology—that is, an expression of praise to God—and was very firm about the relative spiritual value of my calling, regardless of the perceived lack of its economic potential. He read mostly philosophy, and I read mostly critical art theory, but we found common ground in the biography of a cultural legend. Our shared exploration illustrates how reading outside the canon of vocational topics is good for creating opportunities to have interesting conversations that can lead back to vocation.

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