I grew up in church and attended Christian schools most of my life.
I am grateful for my upbringing and the emphasis it placed on excellence and service and a purpose-filled life. But out of the many different things that I was taught, one has haunted me for as long as I can remember. And it is not just a church concept.
This idea has pervaded all parts of American culture to the point that I often hear it talked about in modern business, marketing, and self-improvement videos.
Find your purpose. Your calling.
Identify the one thing in this whole world that you were specifically meant to do.
It is a noble and idealistic concept.
The idea of a calling or a higher purpose is intended to be motivational. After all, if you have a calling you can focus single-mindedly on one, key, thing and then excel at it.
I talk about the importance of focus and drive and excellence all the time. I do believe that there are things in this world that I am uniquely able to do, that there are people I am specially positioned to connect with and influence and inspire.
But even so, the idea of a calling is a trap.
Believing you have a calling and you just haven’t found it yet can leave you indecisive, constantly searching, frustrated, and ultimately, unproductive.
Few people have clarity like that, particularly at a young age.
Often, but not always, people who say they are called to a particular path are religious. But I have a deep faith, and while I believe strongly that God has things He wants me to do, I would not say I have a single defined calling.
Some people do. I am not discounting the validity of that purpose in their lives. It is wonderful for them!
Since they do not have to spend a great amount of time figuring out what they are going to do with their lives, they are able to dig into the work at an early age. This lets them be productive and influential earlier than most people.
But for the rest of us? We have no such clarity. And if we spend our lives looking inward, trying to identify some grand purpose, we won’t be doing the work in front of us with excellence or joy.
We’ll be restless and searching for alternatives. We will move from one endeavor to the other, never mastering anything, never doing anything noteworthy, because we are too busy trying to find our purpose.
The sense of dissatisfaction at not finding said purpose will haunt us and keep us from feeling like anything we do matters.
It might even make us quit trying anything at all.
So let yourself out of the trap.
You don’t need to find your purpose.
Because it has already found you.
- Who do you know? Love them.
- Who do you love? Serve them.
- What must you do today? Do it with excellence and pride.
- What do you love to do all the time? Use it to serve those you love.
That is your calling.
It’s not glamorous, but it is beautiful.
This is what you see in the older lady who lives across the street and plants a beautiful garden and then lets the neighborhood children collect bouquets on mother’s day.
It’s what you see in the lady at church who makes all the brownies for every church potluck and birthday party.
And it’s what you see in the accountant, who shows up on time and works with pride and saves his company from costly bookkeeping errors.
This is your purpose.
- to do what work is in front of you to the best of your abilities,
- to grow in those abilities,
- and to use those abilities in the service of other people.
It doesn’t matter whether you are a carpenter or a teacher, a computer programmer or a plumber, a stay-at-home-dad or a pastor.
And once you let go of the idea of some fated purpose and instead focus on serving others and growing in excellence, you will find that your life already has purpose and value.
Because you are uniquely positioned to reach certain people.
And you can make your corner of the world more beautiful.