Everyone has a calling. It seems that no matter where you go, this is a universal truth. This was a common topic of exploration growing up as a Christian, but I’m always amazed to find that people from such vast backgrounds, cultures, and religions seem to all sense a call to do something great for humanity at some point in their life. Eventually, though, disappointment, illness, and sheer cynicism kick in and many people find themselves cruising through life with faded dreams that seem like a long-lost childhood memory.
Today I’m here to remind you that there is a calling on your life!
In fact, I was reminded of that myself last week when I started reading the book Turning Pro, by Steven Pressfield (great read, by the way). Embracing our calling is not an easy task. In fact, it’s the most difficult. It requires sacrifice, altruism, dedication, diligence. We often forget that the path to our calling is the one least travelled.
In the book, Pressfield mentions that when we deny our true calling we end up in roads that lead us nowhere. Our daily efforts become “repetitions without progress” with incapacity as our payoff. We become addicted to patterns of behavior (from eating, to surfing the web, to failure, to busyness) and what really matters gets buried in our piles of to-dos.
So, in this month of beginnings, I want to invite you to dream again, to remember your call, to envision your purpose. What do you need to do to get back on track? Are there sacrifices you need to make, goals you need to meet? What is the path you need to craft to realize your calling?
“We have an obligation to become our truest, highest self,” Pressfield says.
When we don’t live our true calling, we are like “unpainted masterpieces”, like unwritten symphonies, unfinished stories. With our callings un-lived, humanity is a black and white picture of a much grander reality. Someone is this world needs you to live your highest calling. You need to live it, if only to add more joy to this world. Your life calling is part of the great masterpiece that this world can be! I truly hope that today you're a little more inspired to get a little bit closer to your dreams.