Searching for a calling is an extremely interesting topic that we are lucky enough to discuss today. Let's not miss the opportunity and talk in detail about human self-determination. Let's discuss the meaning of the word "calling", its synonyms, as well as ways to find yourself.
Meaning
The explanatory dictionary is cold and offers only two meanings for the word:
- A penchant for doing something. For example, "Vasily will become a mathematician by vocation, don't fill his head with literature!".
- Life's work, assignment. “Since then, helping people with addictions has become his calling.”
But what can a dictionary know about a genuine human calling? This, of course, is primarily a philosophical and psychological problem. A drama that unfolds separately in each individual life. Misses, hopes of disappointment, when a person chooses one, thinks: “Here it is!”. Then the mirages deceive him, he understands that he did not choose himself, instead of him the choice was made by someone else: relatives, parents, social situation. And he generally wanted the wrong thing.
Yes, the examples are right, and the dictionary tells the truth, how can he be wrong? But history keeps the result, and we, among other things, will talk about how to find your place in life and not regret it, but first, synonyms.
Substitute words
Vocation is a rather difficult topic in general, therefore, to consolidate the result, we can also recall semantic analogues that will be useful to the reader, and we, in turn, do not have the habit of hiding them from him. Here they are:
- talent;
- destination;
- ability;
- inclination;
- business (of a lifetime);
- craft (of a lifetime);
- gift;
- gift.
Familiar words. It is not so difficult to find a synonym for "vocation", it is just very easy. How to understand your personal, individual gift, talent, purpose? Next in line is the mechanism for revealing one's own fundamental propensity.
When is the first time a person thinks about choosing a path in life?
It happens at the age of 15-17. The lower limit is the 9th grade of high school, and the upper limit is graduation classes. Man is a flexible being, therefore he adapts to the requirements of social and biological time. True, there are different points of view. For example, Erich Fromm, a well-known psychologist and philosopher, dropped a phrase in one of his books that the most favorable time for choosing a profession of a lifetime is the age of closer to 30. This position has its own reasons: a person is already mature enough to consciously choose something. The error probability is notso great, there are fewer or no fears at all, because there is experience.
But most people don't have that luxury. The social and biological dimensions of human existence are inexorable. And then it will only get worse, the speed is increasing every day. For example, in Japan, children at the age of five are forced to take tests that will determine their entire future fate: which school they will go to, in which company they will work. But the kids still do not know anything about calling. The interpretation of this word is all the more inaccessible to them. Therefore, European and Russian children are still lucky.
They have a moment of self-determination in early youth (15-17 years), as already mentioned. Along with the need to choose a path in life, perhaps for the first time, serious thoughts appear that hinder vigorous activity, sometimes harm it. For the first time, a person realizes responsibility for his life and his choice.
Trial and error
So that fears, like waves, do not swallow a boy or a girl and do not destroy children during this period, they must approach the threshold of early youth with specific baggage: circles, interest clubs, various kinds of games. Then the process of professional self-determination will not be so painful and painful. Although here we are cunning, for calling means suffering. Some things in life don't come easy no matter how much you prepare for them.
However, trial and error is still invaluable in solving this problem. If a person is not allowed out of the house, not allowed to create andexperiment, for him the process of self-determination, firstly, can drag on for a lifetime, and secondly, be extremely painful.
A child must try, seek, lose, suffer (within reason), but find himself. If you are persistent, then in the vastness of life you will find the work of a lifetime, and possibly several key speci alties. The time is now such that in the matter of vocation (this is proved by practice) you need to be a "multi-instrumentalist", that is, to understand several areas of knowledge at once.
Should we wait for divine insight?
There is such a very harmful myth about destiny that, they say, there are people who know from the very beginning what they want from life, who they want to be. This is especially true of writers. Stephen King and Ray Bradbury have admitted to writing since they were 12. And the author of Dandelion Wine claimed to have delivered at least 1,000 words every day since that age. Another hyper-popular writer, George Martin, has been fantasizing about life on other planets since the age of 4 or 5. And they all say they always knew that writing was their calling.
So, to a certain extent, this is a coincidence of circumstances and such insignificant trifles, which are ashamed to talk about. For example, if modern idols had fallen to despotic or evil parents, they would not exist as phenomena. King's mother has always supported. Bradbury already had his own literary agent at the age of 22, this was even before he published his first story.
Of course, when it comes to vocation, interpretation of the word and reflection on it, people come to mind different cases, and here one cannot discount the perseverance, will, character of certain heroes.
For example, if you read Dovlatov, you can find out: some journalists even starved, but did not give up their craft. And it was not because they were frail or arrogant, but simply a vocation - a mysterious thing and not amenable to a mathematical formula.
God or nature creates a man or a woman with a certain plan, but does not reveal the latter to his children, so that it would be more interesting for them to live. Sometimes the destination becomes obvious only in adulthood. Remember that famous example by Bulgakov about a man who has been teaching Roman law for 20 years, and at the age of 21 realizes that he really likes to grow flowers, and Roman law, on the contrary, is not at all close to him? If the reader wants to get acquainted with the passage in its original form, then we tell him: it is in the novel The White Guard.
And all because people lack the courage, and maybe even the experience, to live according to their own understanding and desire from the very beginning. God has nothing to do with it, this is the struggle that a person must win himself.
