What is your calling?

True Freedom

“Men are not free when they are doing just what they like. Men are only free when they are doing what the deepest self likes. And there is getting down to the deepest self! It takes some diving.”

                                                    D.H. Lawrence

Most of us think we would be happy if only we had more money to spend on things we want. To that end, many of us work all our lives at jobs that are, at best, mildly interesting, at worst, drudgery. Some even manage to accrue large sums of money in investments and those famous 'off-shore' accounts. What we find is even though we have everything money can buy, we feel an emptiness in the pit of our stomach. Something is definitely missing. Something that has nothing to do with wealth.

When I was a counselor, I saw many people who possessed, by most people's standards, fabulous wealth. That wealth did not protect them from experiencing their share of misfortunes and unhappy circumstances. Mostly they found that wealth, once they had it, felt pretty meaningless. So what if they could take trips to exotic places. After a while everything lost its glitter—one exotic place was the same as another.

What fills the void in our lives is doing something that has meaning. It usually involves expression of a deep inner yearning that we pushed aside in the service of making money. I know several physicians who made a lot of money but left their practices so that they could work in a free clinic for poor and homeless people. One surgeon joined Doctors Without Boarders so he could go back to some of those exotic places he had visited and provide medical services for decidedly non-exotic citizens. I know a former CEO who is now making beautiful wood furniture from reclaimed trees; trees felled when an industry or a developer clears a new building site. All these people say they are happier than they have ever been because they are doing what they always intended to do with the gifts God gave them.

Knowing what gives one's life meaning is important. Sometimes it takes diving into the depths of ourselves to find it. Here are some questions to ask yourself: When do I feel most satisfied, most engaged in life? What makes me happy even when I just think about it? When do I feel most in touch with the very essence of who I am?

When you discover what enlivens you and pursue it, you will be truly free.

                                                In the spirit,

                                                  Jane