We are coming to the end of our school year and my students are restless. Not only in terms of preparing for their finals and their last minute struggles to finish projects, but also in larger existential terms. The question they never want to hear, and the one they hate to answer, is the same question that they are constantly thinking about somewhere in the back of the minds:
What are you going to do now?
This simple question includes a host of other smaller and related questions: What is your next step? What are you going to be? What are you going to do with your life?
As a professor I see students struggling with these questions every year, every semester, and almost every day. It is (and should be), a guiding thought throughout their College career. And yet, I also find that students are often afraid to confront the question directly, or really to consider its implication. Some of my students come to school with a plan already set in stone, and they resist considering other options out of a fear that may be forced (or tempted) to change their plans. Other students come in pretending that they have never thought about the future, and do not plan to think about it, until they are forced into a decision. In either case, the students are not really being honest with themselves.
What are you going to do with your life? This is a question about vocation, and it is one that all people must face. It becomes especially important as young people leave the comforts of their parents’ protection and venture off to become masters of their own decisions and of their own time. But in practice, it applies to all people of all ages. Your vocation is not just about how to become an adult, but also how to consistently live as an adult.
In our modern era, we sometimes find people trying to avoiding this transition into adulthood altogether – it is not uncommon to find 30+ year olds, or 40+ year olds still living at home. They may think they are avoiding these questions, but in fact, they have already made their decisions by their lack of decision. They are adults whether they admit to it or not, but they are not living successfully.
The question of vocation is difficult questions, and it seems harsh to expect that an 18 or 19 year old will find the answers to them.
And yet, they often do… and historically, they have been doing so for millennia.
The Joy of Work
Our campus had its Spring Break fairly recently. If I counted the Friday of the last full week all the way up to the following Sunday, then I had 10 full days away from school. Unfortunately, I was behind in my grading so I ended up spending Friday and Saturday grading and entering mid-term marks. I originally planned for 10 days of solid work, but the truth is that we never have as many “free days” as we plan. Nevertheless, beginning that Sunday (after Mass), I officially began my Spring Break and I had a solid eight days of labor.
In my house, I devoted my week to finishing the basement, which is a project that has been in process for about eight 
years. Originally, I planned to be completed in just one year but just as I over-estimated number of free days for Spring break, I under-estimated the amount of time I would need to remodel the house. As usually happens, life got in the way. My wife, who was already sick, eventually passed away after a six and a half year battle with cancer. After the turmoil of losing my wife, our family resettled and I eventually remarried and began on a new stage in life. During the last three years, I wrote two books and moved from untenured assistant Professor, to tenured Associate Professor, and was promoted to Full Professor. All of these things passed between that summer eight years ago when the contractor first lifted our house and bulldozed everything sitting below it, and today – when we now have an “almost” completed basement.
The major work within a month or two. We poured a new basement, built new stud walls, and then set the house back down. For this part, I had contractors and a great deal of help from friends. The work passed quickly. Yet, once the house touched the new basement walls below it, the clock began to tick and the rest of the labor was up to me to finish and complete the basement to make it livable. That was eight years ago, and this Spring Break we were going to round the final corner to complete it.
In hindsight, I realize that I could have hired out these later tasks as well. For some of them, I did. I hired someone to replace my furnace and to install the new duct work. Mostly, though, I relied on some very good friends to lend me their expertise. At the very start of the project, our friends and neighbors organized work parties (primarily out of concern for my ailing wife, Deb) and we had at least major events with 50 or more people coming out to help us begin the landscaping, start the stud walls, start on the siding and even handle a little of the initial wiring – it was like an old fashioned barn-raising. It was a great deal of work from all involved, but it was also full of joy. The Knights of Columbus and our St. Mary’s Church truly gave of their time and talent to help us get started. My wife Deb was ever grateful for the amazing show of love.
The work parties came and went, and I relied on individuals to give me advice. Even before this project began, my friend Dr. Michael Kloess (of Our Lady of Hope Clinic in Madison) showed me how to frame up a stud wall for my laundry room – that was about ten years ago, and I had never built one before. A few years after that, when the house was lifted and suspended 25-feet in the air, Greg Schmidt spent hours on the lower level overseeing the framing of the stud walls that the house would eventual set on. He also showed me how to put up the siding and was truly helpful in sharing tools and expertise on how I should proceed. Dale Wallace (owner of our local Ash Creek Plumbing and Heating) gave me hours of verbal explanations on how to plan my plumbing (both water coming in, and wastewaters going out), and other showed me other useful techniques. I remember a Spring Break five years ago, when the house had minimal electricity but no water and I planned on spending the entire week taking out the old plumbing and setting in the new. Dale came by and talked me through the basic ideas, and then drew a few lines on the back of a napkin – that was enough to guide me on the rest of the work. A week later I had the plumbing and water in place. Later, some of my friends from Hillsboro, (Aaron Hubbs and Brandon Wipf of Wipf Flooring) stopped by to help me build my stairs from the top floor to the basement. All these experts – and many others that I have not mentioned – were essential to me. Not only did they lend me 
their advice, but they also gave me hope. They gave me the confidence to know that this was a possible task.
Of course, they did these sorts of things for a living. I was doing these things partly because I wanted to, and partly because I had to (I could not afford hiring out).
It has been a long project. Again… I know that if I had hired out these tasks this project would have been completed five years ago. My family and I did a lot. We built a new face of the house (to accommodate the new stairwell), we built the internal walls in the basement, we did all the new wiring, we build all the new decks, we put on the drywall and mudded the seams, and we painted, and laid the flooring, added the trim, and generally designed everything. I could have taken out loans and hired other people to do these things, and it would have probably cost me $80,000 or more. But I would missed out on a lot.
I would not have experienced the joy of that work.
I realize that for many people, the idea of personally remodeling their house sounds a little like purgatory. But, in truth, the project has been long and hard, but it has also been a source of joy.
From the beginning, this project has been tied up with my family and our future. Originally, I most wanted to finish the basement before my wife Deb passed away. And when we first began this project, she was also thinking the same thing. But, our priorities slowly changed. About a year into it, when her treatments became more frequent and more taxing on her, Deb told me explicitly that she wanted us (and me) to devote our energies elsewhere. We had limited money, and she did not want me spending my time working in the basement. She wanted us to spend our time together as a family – travelling, visiting, and sharing. It was a healthy decision, and we spent the next several years building up decades of memories.
Throughout that time, even though the basement was set in the back burner of our priorities, we continued to plan for it and design it as if we were working on the project every weekend. Deb drew dozens of pictures and scale models of how she wanted each wall to be designed. She picked out colors swatches and fixtures. We did not stop work altogether, but we did it much more slowly – sometimes buying materials that would not be used for several years. During the process, we also found that we changed our minds over and over again. And yet the change in plans was never frustrating. Indeed, it was the planning and the designing that was most fun.
We never tired of dreaming. Deb would have loved to see the completed project, but it was 
actually more important to her that we share in the dreaming. It was not really about having the perfect basement. It was always about having our basement that we built together, and represented our dreams. The basement would have seemed a little cold if it had been completed by someone else.
That is, I think, true of life generally. When we plan a project, we are really dreaming a little about the future. We are sharing our hopes for what we want to see down the road. House projects can be irritating and frustrating if the goal is to have everything finished and done with. But… if the goal is to enjoy the process of creating, and designing together, then the project can be a genuine joy.
How I Stumbled into My Vocation
Over this past spring break, as I remudded and sanded the same seams on the drywall for the umpteenth time, I realized that even though I enjoy the physical labor of remodeling, it is equally clear that I was not called to construction work as a vocation.
I do like building things, though. When I was a young boy – about five or six years old, I think – I decided that I wanted to be a boat builder. My parents had this great big coffee table book with pictures of boats in the various 
stages of production. I am not sure when or why, but I remember one day I blurted out that I wanted to be a boat builder. I think it surprised everyone that heard me, and for whatever reason I liked the response. For years, my standard reply whenever anyone asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, was “I want to be boat builder.” After the third or fourth time I said that, my mother developed the habit of correcting me with, “No, dear… you want to be a naval architect.” She was amused that I had any interest in boats at all, since our family rarely saw or dealt with them. Nevertheless, she also wanted me to be a professional in whatever field I ended up, so “naval architecture” was a more fitting answer than “boat builder.”
The idea of boats grew within me, though. I think, partially, it was something of an accident that made me stumbled
on the idea of building boats – it was the coffee table book, originally. But my family was encouraging me in whatever I chose, so I found myself thinking about boats. When my grandfather came to live with us for a brief spell, he and my dad used to visit the boat dealerships and my brothers and I used to love climbing in and out of the boats that were on display. I remember that I felt a sort of ownership even then. I felt a little more special during these visits because these boats were “my thing” and they represented “my future.” As brothers, we played around on each boat and debated which one we liked best, and argued about which one we most wanted to own (or improve upon). The humor is that my Grandpa never actually bought a boat – nor did my family. Nevertheless, my special love of boats lasted for a very long time based largely on these experiences.
I am not sure when I actually changed my mind about being a boat builder. I think it happened sometime during middle school, when I realized that I got seasick pretty easily. During one of my trips on my Uncle’s Zodiak off the Homer Spit in Alaska I realized that too much time on an actual, real live boat that was really floating in the water… and constantly moving… and swaying… and never staying in one place… was difficult for me. My stomach would toss and turn with the waves, and I got seasick at seemingly random times.
Nope… I could never honestly be a boat builder and get seasick every time I tested one of my boats on the open waters. I still love the look and designs of sleek boats… but I do not own one, and will probably never design one.
A similar experience helped change my plans from becoming a medical doctor. Again, I cannot remember when or how the idea of being a physical came into my head, but sometime when I was in junior high or high school I decided I wanted to be a medical doctor. My uncle was a doctor, and when I was young we used to visit him in Seattle. “Doctor” was certainly better than “Boat Builder” for my mom (though, honestly, she would have been happy with either choice). Perhaps, I was attracted to my Uncle’s profession. Or, I may have been attracted by the respect that doctor’s seemed to have. I truly did have a sincere desire to help people who were sick, but I am not sure I ever thought about the practical side of medicine as much as I thought about the title “doctor”. Whichever the case, by the time I was 14 or 15 years old in high school I began experiencing the same sense of ownership with each visit to the hospital that I used to have with each visit to the boat dealer.
This changed in a single day. I remember that day clearly. Actually, it was night time. Our family had moved back to
Alaska, and we were enjoying our first wintertime. My brother and I were driving with my sister-in-law just after the fall of dusk, and we passed a wooded lot right near our house. Through the tree we saw a moose standing in the woods. At that time, we were still excited to see a moose so we stopped and my brother and I jumped out of the car to go see him closer. We crept up to him like national geographic photographers (or so we thought). It was in November so we were walking on top of the snow which had a thick layer of ice on it. We wanted to sneak up as close as we could to the moose – I am still not sure what we were hoping for. I remember seeing my brother very near the moose, with his hand outstretched, as if to pet him.
[Just a quick interjection here… that was a really bad idea on so many fronts… Moose may look like big cows, but they are sometime unpredictable…if you ever visit Alaska, please do not creep up on a big moose in the middle of the night and try to pet him…]
In any case, my brother was trying to be stealthy with his hand outstretched when suddenly he plunged through the top layer of ice and fell through the softer snow below. Fortunately, the moose was altogether unconcerned and just meandered away. But during the fall, my brother sliced open the palm of hand as he reached down to catch himself. The thick layer of ice can be as sharp as a piece of glass if the weather is cold enough (and it was). My brother’s hand was bleeding profusely. He and I forgot the moose and ran back to the car. With very few words, my sister-in-law sped directly to the emergency room.
While we were at the hospital, I started taking a professional interest in the waiting room, in the doctors, and in the 
whole process – as I normally did. After all, I was going to be a doctor and so I decided that I ought to know how to handle a typical emergency room wound. When the doctor came in to see my brother’s hand, I told him that I also was going to be a doctor. He was kind and he let me watch the procedure. I paid close attention as he started to clean the wound, and as he dealt with my brother’s hand as if it were a piece of meat, and as he stuffed gauze into the wound and rooted in and about to make sure there was no dirt and rocks or other particles there. I think I was able to watch the process for a full three minutes before the nurse finally noticed me.
She said, “You look a little green… why don’t you sit down for a minute.”
And she was right. I was green, and I was getting sick to my stomach, and I did need to sit down for more than a minute. And it was clear that just as I was not going to be a boat builder, I was also not going to be a medical doctor. Good doctors are not supposed to faint at the sight of blood (or even get close to fainting). And I was definitely very near to fainting.
From that point, my choice of vocations changed. No longer a doctor. During my junior year in high school, I took a psychology class and decided that I wanted to study psychology. This was motivated partially because I realized that a psychologist was still be a doctor, but they do not have to work with bloody hands in emergency rooms. Perhaps more compelling, though, was the fact that I genuinely loved listening to people and talking with people. This seemed to be one of my gifts. I was fascinated by the thought of better understanding the human mind through professional study.
In high school there are almost unlimited opportunities to listen to people and hear their woes, and offer consolation. Adults call it melodrama, but these issues seem enormously important to the teens who worry. At the same time, I was also writing poetry every day (mostly really bad poetry) and I was in love with the idea of deep, dark, and depressing emotions that can stir the soul. For some reason, I thought poetry and psychology fit together perfectly, so when I entered college I declared myself as a psychology major and promised to devote most of my free classes to English and creative writing. My future was set.
And I was somewhat persistent. I studied as a psychology major for three and a half years. At first, there was a certain degree of pride and egoism in the choice – I loved the thought that I might be able to be better understand people. But I was young. I realize now that what I actually loved was the idea I might have a “key” to better understanding people. It was not so much the desire to help (though that was always the stated intent) as much as it was the desire to feel empowered by the knowledge of how to help. It was the idea that I could find the “key” to open other people’s hearts and minds.
After the second year, though, I became a little disenchanted with the field. Most of my courses seemed very repetitive and despite the cool names (“Abnormal Psychology”, “Counseling Psychology”, “Stress Management,” etc.), and I was not really discovering any secret “keys” to understanding human nature. In the meantime, I had also shifted my focus away from English and poetry. I still loved writing, but I found that I wrote very little in my literature courses. Instead, I mostly read. By contrast, I found that I was writing a great deal in my History courses. Instead creative writing course, I began filling out my extra classes with History options. By my junior year, my plans had changed – but only a little. I planned to earn a bachelor’s degree in Psychology (with History minor instead of English), and then earn a Masters’ Degree in Counseling Psychology, before earning a law degree to be an attorney. In my mind, I would be overqualified as a lawyer by obtaining the masters’ in counseling, and that would help make me a better listener as an attorney at law.
When we are students, we sometime confuse “qualifications” with “preparations” and “course work.” These three elements are not always synonymous. Just because we plan out the right major and the right degrees does not mean we are prepared for the vocation that we hold in our mind’s eye.
Needless to say, my plans as a third year student did not survive my reality as a graduating student. I realized something was wrong early in my senior year, when I found myself disagreeing with almost all of my psychology courses. Either I found the “research” to be meaningless (elaborate confirmations of common sense), or I found the research to be overly academic (so contrary to common sense as to be unbelievable.) I had not been unconscious of these gnawing questions about my field, but I mostly I had been ignored them during the past year or two. My plans were already set and I was going to be a lawyer and I needed the counseling degree to be a better lawyer. It did not matter that I was frequently disagreeing with lessons and courses that I was taking.
Nevertheless, throughout the process I was building myself up to have an epiphany moment without ever intending to do so. I remember entering my final lab class as a senior. I had completed all the other requirements for my major except for this single credit. We were scheduled to meet just one hour a week, and the syllabus and the course materials all indicated that this last credit would be fairly easy to complete. I was supposed to teach a rat to pick up a small ball and place it in the hoop at the far of the end of his cage. I was assigned a lab partner who was very gracious and seemed just as able as I was. And yet… by the end of my first class session, I realized I was not going to be continuing on in this field. It was not the task itself – my lab partner and I played with the little rat and we both got to understand its habits for a little while. On that level, the experience was fine: I love little furry creatures and my lab partner really was very nice. Nevertheless, by the end of the night, I realized that I just did not believe the premise of this course. And that caused me to question the premise of the entire discipline.
My department was dominated by the behaviorist school of psychology, and the professors had been telling me for a long time – through this lab and through a host of other courses – that we had no free will. We controlled human behavior by systematically understanding the stimuli and responses of our daily lives. In this lab, we were expected to “train” the rat to perform any behavior. I understood that part well. But, the argument went further. It argued by extension, and the same methods we use on animals should, with some adaptation, be able to work with humans. With enough research into natural human reactions, we could learn to stimulate positive human behaviors and extinguish negative behaviors. At heart, though, we have to treating humans the same way that we would treat the rat.
This was not a new message for me because I had been hearing it for nearly four year. Yet, for some reason, I suddenly understood what the message meant. In a nutshell, my field of psychology was “arguing” that humans were nothing more than complex animals, and the “key” to understanding the human mind was to apply the appropriate stimulants (or consequences) at the most opportune times, and all behavior problems would be cured.
That was not the sort of “key” that I had been searching for. That night, I realized that I simply did not agree with the argument. I did not believe that humans were nothing more than complex animals, and I did not believe that our behaviors were determined. As a man of faith, I believed strongly in free will, and in Providence, and in a higher destiny. God provides the options and opportunities, and we make the decisions. And though some sorts of decisions (temptations, or addictions) may be more difficult to resist than others, my faith made me believe that we could always chose, and we could always make our own decisions. In this way, during my senior year, during my last single-credit lab course, I realized that I had to drop psychology.
That night, I went home and looked at my transcript and realized that, without intending it, I had already taken more History courses than Psychology courses. I had accidently earned a major in History, even though I only took the courses because I enjoyed them. More importantly, perhaps, I also realized that I agreed with the basic premise of the discipline, and that I could see myself “doing” History without feeling it was a false argument.
My vocation changed again. Instead of earning a Master’s Degree in Psychology, I set out to earn a higher degree in History. I had no idea what I was going to do with a History Degree. I never thought of myself as a teacher (though I liked public speaking), and I did not know of any other use for the degree. But… I knew that I could not, in good conscious, follow my original path of psychology.
Obviously, that was a decisive moment for me. I eventually went on to earn my master’s degree in History. In the process, I also realized that I actually did like teaching after all. Moreover, I felt a genuine calling toward teaching. But I also realized that I needed more preparation. While I was in my first graduate classes, I realized just how much that I did not yet know … about anything. I sat in classes with doctoral students and I was disappointed to find that there was not a huge gulf between my knowledge and analysis and theirs. This should have been encouraging, but instead it was disheartening. There should have been a giant chasm – they had three years of grad school more than I had, and yet they were still very much like I was.
The problem was not that I lacked classroom education, the problem was that I lacked wisdom. I lacked the experience of real world interactions. I had not planned on entering the teaching field, but I realized that teaching would be the best way for me to develop some actual experience. And like a good student, I planned my next stage of preparation: I was going to teaching at private schools for five years, then I would know whether I should continue with History or move on to something else… maybe back to law school.
The next fall after earning my Masters’ degree, I got a job teaching at a private Catholic School. It was a much needed experience. Within a year, I realized that no matter what else I did, I would in some way be devoting my life to teaching. I still planned on returning to grad school for my doctorate, but the decision was not as easy as I had originally planned. After my five years were complete, I came to love the teaching even more than I loved the historical research. I struggled with the question of whether I should go back for my doctorate, or whether I should settle in at some boarding school as forever be a high school teacher. In the end, though, I also realized through the experience of teaching in the boarding school, that it was difficult to write and teach at the high school level. And in the process of discerning my future plan, I realized that I loved writing as much as I loved the teaching, and I would only be able to write if I were teaching at the collegiate level.
After another five years in grad school, and I finally landed my job as a University Professor.
I often share these stories (or parts of them) with my students when we discuss vocations. My life is a living example that plans change – and usually for the better. When we are young we do not fully understand what it is that drives up one direction or another. We also do not fully recognize our own gifts. We need a little experience, and we need a little trial and error.
There was something that drew me to want to build boats, and there was something else that drew me to want to be a medical doctor, and to pursue psychology. And yet, none of these professions were meant for me. When we are young, we often have no real experience of what we could do. We may have many, many examples of what we want to do, but these examples are often motivated by incidental causes. A coffee-table book and a few trips with my grandfather made me want to be a boat builder. My mother wanted me to be a professional, so it was changed to “naval architect” but that title never resonated with me. I liked the idea of being a doctor, but the reality of actual practice made me sick. A fun high school class (and an influential teacher) made me interested in psychology. Yet, I had no real understanding of what the field was about. I wanted to be a writer, and thought English was the natural direction, but it was not until I tasted a few English courses that I realized that I was not meant for that pathway either. Those are only the most dramatic of my early career choices. I also thought about being a computer programmer, a song-writer and a musician, and a farmer. I wanted to do many things when I was younger. As I grew older, and gained more experience, I realized that I was always confronted with many, many interests – but I was not called to do many, many things.
God gives us many gifts and he grants us many interests. I still love building things. I love music, and poetry and writing. I love playing with computer gadgets, and I still love listening and helping people. But, I was called to be a professor. These other gifts are the tools that God sent me to fill in the cracks, and to provide service and meaning in other ways, along the way. They are my hobbies, and they are not unimportant. I use my non-Historian problem-solving skills when I work on the basement, and I share as many of these experiences as I can with my two boys. I am a professor, but as life unfolds, I often spend almost as much or more time doing non-professorial activities in the process of raising a family. All those other gifts help me greatly in those endeavors, even though I do not get paid for them, and they are not my primary vocation. My friends share their vocations with me to aid me in my projects, and I share my vocation as a teacher or a writer whenever the opportunities arise. My life’s vocation is much more than the job that I earn my income from. It involves all the lesser activities as well.
Discernment
We may develop specific interests for any number of random reasons – a stray word from a friend (”you should/could do that”), or a stubborn challenge from a rival (“you can never do that…”) may both launch us down a path toward interests that we had not thought of before. Perhaps a mentor or a professor gives the right encouragement at the right time. Or, it could be as simple as a coffee-table book, or a movie character that triggers an interest. Especially when we are young, these interests come and go frequently – some stay longer than others. But interests are not necessarily gifts.
When I was a senior in high school, I had a friend who wanted to be an astronaut or an astrophysicist. It was no surprise why – he was a huge Star Trek and Star Wars fan and loved the idea of living and working in space. He admired the fictional characters and wanted to imitate the lives they led on screen. He was not crazy. He knew that he would not become them, and he totally understood the flaws and realities of the fictional characters versus the real life occupation of a NASA scientist. Nevertheless, he still wanted to be an astronaut. With this goal in mind, he enrolled in every relevant science course he could get into at the University. He was a little older than I was and was already a sophomore while I was still a senior in high school. We talked about these goals a lot and at that early stage I fully expected him to follow that dream.
Unfortunately, my friend’s interests did not match his gifts. He kept failing his science courses. He took physics and calculus over and over again because these subjects were extremely difficult for him to master. In fact, it effected his college career. I graduated from high school and then graduated from college four years later and my friend had not moved beyond his sophomore/junior status. He dreamt of working in the stars, but he did not have the necessary gifts of mathematics and engineering to be able to fulfill that dream.
I could say that this is a tragic story, but it is not. In the end, he fell into a position in which he worked with people every day. In truth, he was also a very likeable and sociable guy, and his gifts clearly matched the profession he eventually assumed – even if it did not require a college degree.
The world might interpret this story in a different way. The first temptation is to say that my friend did not try hard enough: either he was lazy, or else he was otherwise distracted and let his dream slip away from his fingers. That certainly could have been the case. Except that it was not the case. My friend was not lazy. He tried very, very hard. These classes were simply too difficult for him. And he was not incapable in other areas – he did fine in other classes. He just had a difficulty with the ones that requires intensive math and engineering, which were the two skills he needed most.
The world likes to teach us that we should be able to do whatever we put our minds to. But that is not always true. I wanted to be a professional musician, but I will never be a world class musician because the tectorial membrane in my inner ear does not exhibit a broad enough range of sensitivity for me to fully distinguish pitch frequencies. In plain English – I do not have perfect pitch. I do not even have good pitch. I cannot tell if the sounds I am making are the same as those I am hearing. That is a problem, and it means that no matter how much I may appreciate beautiful music, I will never be able to replicate it with sufficient precision to be a world class musician. My sons, on the other hand, have amazing abilities, which they inherited from their mom. They both have a gift for music. If they had the interest, they could follow that path. I have the interest, but I will never be able to complete that path, no matter how hard I try.
The other temptation is to say that my friend was somehow prevented from achieving his dream by outside forces. This is popular in our modern world, especially among our young people (and their parents). If my friend was female or an ethnic minority, he might be able to claim that he was somehow oppressed. He had the desire, but the world plotted against him to prevent him from achieving his dream. Unfortunately, though, he is a white male – two strikes against him. Still, if he really wanted to he might be able to resort to other excuses. He could claim that he had a bad childhood, or that he was poor, or that he was dyslexic, or suffered from attention deficit disorder, or undiagnosed autism. Of course, none of these things are true for him, but there would certainly have been ample support for him had he chosen to rely on those excuses and to place his failure to achieve his dream on forces outside of his own doing. According to the world, we should be able to do whatever we want to do regardless of whether we have any skills in the field.
But the world is wrong. Whether we ascribe the blame to the individual or to the social environment in which the individual lives, we are in both cases denying the reality of nature.
Therein lies the problem of our modern vocational counseling. The world does not recognize the fact that we did not create ourselves. God is our Creator, and no matter how much we wish for, or try for, or give external support for, we must ultimately adhere to the plans that God has laid out for us. God created us with specific and unique gifts that were intended for us individually. As people of faith, we assume that God thus has a specific plan for us. He gave us gifts and He wants us to use them for whatever vocation he has in mind. We may develop an interest or a desire in anything, for any number of reasons, but if our interests do not match our gifts, then we are fighting nature itself. If our desires do not match the vocation we were created for, then it is not our fault or the world’s fault, but simply a reality of our own nature. Even if, somehow through force, guilt, or blackmail we were able to push ourselves into the vocation that we are unsuited for, we will always be unsatisfied.
The good news is that if our vocation matches our gifts, then we will always be happy – no matter how that vocation is ultimate expressed.
This is not as confusing as it sounds, but it is more complex than it seems. Since we did not create ourselves, and since we were created with specific gifts intended for a certain kind of vocation, then we must recognize that we live in a predestined world. This is very hard to accept in a world that touts personal freedom and choice as much as we do in our modern society. The truth is, though, that we do not really “choose” what we want to do with our lives. Instead, we “discern” what God has already planned for our lives.
God does not whisper directions in our ears, so the path of discernment requires us to be sensitive to both our internal affirmations and our external struggles. In short, we must look to the signs that are all around us. God gave us gifts, so what are our gifts? This requires humility and honesty. I may want to be an astronaut or a professional musician, but do I have the ability to be either? The reason why this is complex is because God also gave us free will. We never have to do, or be, anything that we do not want to be. God may have given my friend a wonderful gift of empathy and compassion, and yet his insistence on pursuing astrophysics may have left him blind to those gifts (it did not… he discovered them eventually). But, in a tragic version of the story, my friend may have been so stubborn in his pursuit of his dream that he ignored all other signs. If he had lived in a different era, he may have blamed the professors, or the school, for being unfair or discriminatory. He may have fought to have the standards lowered so that he could continue his training. He could have become so habituated to lying to himself that he would become deaf to his own heart. His repeated failures and connived loopholes might have caused him to become hardened to external influences, and in the end, he might have destroyed the real gifts of empathy and compassion that he was bestowed with. This would not have been God’s error, nor would it have been a reflection of injustice in the world. It would have been his own fault, born out of his own choices.
The world teaches us pride. But the supremacy of nature ought to teach us humility. We cannot dictate our vocation, we must discern it. Once we have humbly identified our gifts, then we need to actively develop them. From this process we develop our vocation, but we never really choose it.
Between Pride and Humility
In the recent film, Zootopia (2016), we are introduced to a cute computer animated story from Disney, whose motto was “Anyone can be anything!” It is set in a utopian animal city, in which all the animals had evolved beyond their natural instincts so that predator animals and prey animals lived side by side – at least in theory. In practice, the predator animals were still more likely to be overly aggressive and the prey animals were more likely to be vulnerable. The climax of the movie comes when some of the prey animals begin to revert to their natural aggressive conditions, making them “savage” again. For a brief time, the animals fear that basic biology would determine the fate of each beast, and that no amount of evolution could surpass the primal biological urges. In the end, though, it turned out that the savagery was not natural at all, but was caused by a drug that turned tame animals into savage beasts. Once the antidote was taken then the animals returned to their previous civilized condition. At the end of the movie, the main message was that “Anyone can be anything… but it is hard… and you have to constantly try to overcome your natural limitations.”
It is a sweet movie, but it is also mostly modern political propaganda. The primary thrust of the movie is that we need to be inclusive of everyone, and we should never hold our natural differences against anyone. We should do whatever we want to do… in this story, humility is seen as a sort of vice. The hero’s parents were humble and accepted their roles in society, and they were also portrayed as weak and marginal failures. Biology is explicitly described as a self-constructed limitation, which weak people accept (or exploit), but which ought not to be a determinant factor in our lives. It is a very modern message, but it is ultimately a message that is contrary to faith.
Yes… we should strive to overcome our limitations. Yes… we should not let our fears of failure, or our fears of struggle determine our vocations. These are good messages. But, there is a fine line between courage and pride. There is a fine line between our dreams and our delusions. The main distinction between each of these opposites is the presence of humility, love, and divine hope. We do not determine our own vocations – we did not create ourselves. It is pride to say that we can be whatever we want to be. It is a delusion to say that we can determine our own destiny in the same way that we define our own identity. Humility is not difficult, it is a simple recognition that we are the creation and not the Creator. We did not create ourselves, and so we need to strive to follow the path that God has set for us.
This is not defeatism – quite the opposite. Our faith is the source of our courage. It is a humble faith that encourages us to overcome our limitations, because we know that if God wants us to follow a certain path, then we will always find the strength to fulfill our vocation. Humility does not mean that we accept the obstacles that are in our way. Humility recognizes that God will give us what we need, as we need it, and with God’s help we can move mountains and we can overcome any obstacle. It is not because we are mighty and powerful that we succeed, it is because God is stronger than anything the world puts in front of us.
It is pride to believe that we are the sole judge of what we can or should do. It is humility to seek out God’s voice in our own hearts, and to follow his Graces so that we can be his hands on earth. It is a delusion to presume that we can overcome the boundaries that God has created for us in nature. It is the fulfillment of a dream to realize that God will give us the strength to overcome any barrier that the world throws against us.
The world is not very encouraging when it comes to providing help for individual vocational discernment. Like the movie, Zootopia, every little child is told that they can be whatever they want to be when they grow up. I am certainly not opposed to such messages in principle. They are messages of hope, and we should always strive to live by our hope. Unfortunately, the world does not really frame these messages in hope, but rather frames them in a context of pride and even in sort of selfishness. This is not unusual. The world often disguises its messages in terms that are very similar in tone to the Christian messages of faith, hope, and love. Tolerance sounds like love except that it is not rooted in humility and it is not really based on any willingness to sacrifice.
The worldly virtues emphasize pride, which is the opposite of love. It also emphasizes a desire for authority and respect, which is the opposite of humility. The world tells us to choose our own destiny, and laments when we fail that it is either because we did not try hard enough, or because some person (or group) stood in our way. This is a materialistic view of the world – it presupposes that the source of our destiny is entirely in our hands. The worldly standards do not look for inspiration, or strength, or hope outside of ourselves.
The worldly call for “tolerance” and “inclusivity” is an artificial mimicry of Christian love. Christianity is based on love, but it is a humble love that directs each person to sacrifice themselves, and to give of themselves for others. The Christian message of hope is based on the conviction that God truly loves us and that He has a clear plan. And most important of all, it presumes that God’s plan involves salvation for the entire world. Our vocations are all tied, in some way, to God’s plan. Sin and corruption and abuse all arise when we place our plans/goals ahead of God’s plans/goals. Yet, that is what the world calls us to do. The worldly message that calls us to choose our own destiny regardless of what nature says is a message of pride. It tells that we must be inclusive, because we do not want to be excluded. We must tolerate others, because we do not our actions to be judged. These worldly virtues are based on our selfish desire to do (and choose) whatever we want to do.
But that is not love.
God does not call us to tolerate others as a license to live without judgement. God calls us to love others, because through our love we bring all people to him. We are called to love others even when it is uncomfortable for us, and when it runs contrary to our desires. Some of our most precious acts of love are when we restrain our actions, sacrifice our wishes, and do for others because it is something that God wants us to do, and not what we want to do. Sometimes we accept burdens, and sometimes we forgo the recompense that justice demands, and sometimes we suffer because of our vocation, but we still follow it because it is what God has planned for us.
The world tells us we can be whatever we want to be. We can choose to be a girl, even if our biology has made us a boy. We can choose to be a fighter, even if our biology has made us a nurturer. How often do we hear public service announcements encouraging our young girl to pursue professions in math, engineering, or the sciences? Why? Should we assume that those professions are dominated by boys because the world hates girls? Or… is it possible that more boys are called into those professions than are girls? It is a modern heresy to suggest that nature has cast women more toward the nurturing vocations, and less often toward the physical vocations. Yet, is it possible that women are less involved than men in jobs that involve science, math and engineering because women are more often called to other vocations that men are barred from? A man can never be a mom – he can be a father, but he can never be a mom. That is a biological limitation. It stands to reason that even if some of the women choose to live their primary vocations as mothers, then there would be more men in the remaining fields than women.
And yet, the world teaches us to deny such natural preferences, and to ignore any and all such limitations as biological gender.
The world often uses language of faith, but you can recognize that the message is always just a “little off.” Jesus warned us that there will be many false philosophies that speak the language of peace, but which are actually disguising a language of pain. “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits.”
The world tells us that “you can be anything,” and yet clearly it does not encourage “certain” vocations. How often does the world recommend chastity? Lifelong obedience? What is the reaction from the guidance counselor when a young woman says she wants to grow up and be a mom? How many modern films show our heroes forsaking fame, fortune, and sex to pursue a life of humility and devotion? Where are the heroes who choose to become priests? Or Sisters? They sometimes exist, but unfortunately, Hollywood confuses those storylines just as often. More often than not, the films that mention religious vocations (like Sister Act, for example), always pervert the vocation as a burden that needs to be adjusted. Usually, over the course of the story the main hero transforms the convent or monastery to impose her dreams and desires onto the community – to transform a contemplative order into an order dedicated to social outreach is not an act of humility, nor is it an act of self-sacrifice. This is pride clothed in the pretense of devotion.
The world does not encourage humility or discernment. The world encourages self-expression regardless of what other people think. God is rarely, if ever, featured as a legitimate source of inspiration or intelligence for determining or discerning our personal vocations.
These are difficult times for our young people – indeed, they are difficult times for all people of any age. As a professor I often face well-formed students asking me advice for their vocations. Frequently, I have young women who admit to me that they secretly want to be mothers, but that they do not tell anyone because they fear the backlash. The most common explanation is that they do not want to “waste” their education by deferring the public life and striving to be a mom.
It is a very sad profession to make. My response is always the same. You must discern your vocation, and really think about your gifts, and be open to any opportunity as it arises. And that should include Motherhood if it is one of the opportunities that arises. If you called to be a mother, then you should follow that path – and it does not mean that your college education is waste. Quite the opposite is true. You go to school to develop your gifts, not to get a job. Mothers are the first teachers of our children, and in the modern age, we should apply the greatest amount of education to develop all of our gifts so that we can be provide the best for our children. Just because motherhood does not earn a paycheck, does not mean it requires no training. Mothers should go to school, just as fathers should go to school.
The problem is that we assume our school, our education, and our vocation must be judged by worldly standards: wealth, fame, or power. We see this daily in the actions of our youthful “activists.” Everyone wants to live a meaningful life. Everyone wants to be influential. We all want what we do to matter to the rest of the world. The students who tries to shame her teacher and classmates (through her condemnation and judgement) because they do not recognize her “choice” to 
become a boy… or the rioter who feels justified to hurt or cause damage or pain to other people in order to promote their cause… or the Facebook blogger who feels compelled to shout out their anger in coarse, crass, and hurtful ways. These are not the acts of people who want to be mean and hurtful. They are the acts of young people who want to be something important, they want to respected (and sometimes feared) as a person who makes a difference. Unfortunately, they may not realize that their actions are motivated as much by pride than by love. They are angry and hurtful… but they are not meaningful.
The error is that we judge “meaningfulness” according to these worldly standards of wealth, and fame, and power. 
We judge are our success according to whether we have achieved these things. Maybe I do not have a high paying job, but I can get media attention by my actions. Maybe I do not make myself a public target, but I have a high paying job. If we judge our education according to whether we are going to achieve these standards, then we miss the importance of our inherent gifts.
We do not go to school or to college because we want to get a job. I know that is the usual reason why people justify the expense of education, but it is not cost-effective decision. Rarely does the actual price of our education easily match the increase in earning power. Of course, I am speaking as a professor in the liberal arts, but I would argue (strongly) that we should educate ourselves in order to develop the gifts that God gave us. Our education may require college, or it may require a technical school, or it may involve actual on-the-job work experience – but in any of these cases, we train ourselves in order to better develop the gifts that are already within us. We are not striving to “invent” new gifts. Nor can we develop a skill in something that we have no aptitude for. It stands to reason, therefore, that we develop what we have so that we can be better at what we are supposed to do.
Discerning a vocation is as much practice as it is planning. We do our best, we take advantage of our opportunities as they arise, and the rest will follow. Our ultimate vocation is based on the fulfillment of our gifts, and not on the title or the paycheck or the public acclaim. A mom may not be paid in material terms, but she reaps a priceless harvest in other ways. A father may be paid very high wages for certain types of jobs, but may be bankrupt in terms of following his vocation. Our vocation should not be measured by worldly standards. It should not even measured by our own standards. It should be measured according to whether or not we are following God’s standards.
We experience our Christian hope when we rely on faith that God has a plan for us, and that he will provide for us when and as we need it. Christian hope sees all of us as individually chosen for our individual vocations – we are all members of the same army, brothers of the same Father, and enemies of the same Devil. All we must do is go forth, develop the gifts that God has given us, and walk by faith and not by the world. This is hope. This also is love.
What If… We Miss(ed) Our Calling
How often have you wondered “if things had been different?” What opportunities did I miss out on because I was following my own personal interests… and ignoring the gifts that I was born with? What did I miss because I was too afraid to follow the direction that my heart pulled me toward, but which the world criticized? How many people were supposed to be priests, brothers or nuns, but chose instead to succumb to the priorities of our hypersexualized world? How many people have we hurt because we stubbornly stuck to a path that we wanted to follow, rather than changing course when we realized it did not reflect our innate gifts?
These are far more complex questions than they appear. If I died today and went to heaven and asked God, “What was I supposed to be doing in my life?” I sincerely doubt he would be giving me a specific job title. It is a very worldly thing to identify our vocations according to the job description, salary and benefits list. God gave us gifts – many, many gifts. He also gave us free will and opportunities to develop those gifts in order to better prepare ourselves to be productive members of our human family. It would be overly simplistic to think that there was only one job that our gifts could be used for. It is overly restrictive to think that there was only one path that God had in mind for us. Our moral obligations are not reduced to a single job title. Jesus never identified one profession as being more or less holy than another. Our vocations are defined by our general moral disposition toward human interaction and actions.
Do we love God with our whole heart?
Do we honestly strive to do His will over our own?
Do we try to love those around us, even when it is difficult and seemingly futile?
These are the measures of our vocation. They exist without pride, or selfishness. These measures are entirely framed according to our relationship with God. He is the source of our gifts, and He is the author of our vocation. We have but to say yes, and then we work – we follow the path God has set for us, even if it is difficult, and even if it is painful, and even it is not what we had originally planned for ourselves.
This is not an excuse for laziness. If God gave me a gift for artistic expression, then I need to develop and use those gifts. It does not really matter if I am an art teacher, or a solo artist, or a designer. I do not judge my success based on whether I am famous, or highly paid, and overtly influential. I humbly develop my gifts, and do my best. The rest will follow.
The Church believes in pre-destination, but the Church also believes in free will… and most importantly, the Church believes in salvation. Undoubtedly, God has very specific plans for my life, and He presents opportunities frequently for us to take advantage of. It is unlikely that there is only one job that we were created to fulfill. It is more likely that we are called to work with the gifts that we have, and in that spectrum we may be called to serve in any number of ways.
Therein lies our free will.
Whichever opportunity we take advantage of (through discernment), then we can rely on our faith and hope to assume that God placed that opportunity before us. There may have been other opportunities that our fears caused us to miss… but that does not mean that God does not continually give us more opportunities. God always saves us, even from our own weaknesses and our own selfish decisions. One opportunity may have been better than another, but they will both succeed in the end.
This is one of my favorite lessons in the Chronicles of Narnia books. Frequently, the main character will miss an opportunity and it will create difficulties for the characters throughout the story. In the opening of The Silver Chair Jill’s pride causes Eustace to fall off the edge of a cliff. It was not what Aslan had planned, but Aslan saves the boy nonetheless. But the decision does have consequences. The two are late in arriving in Narnia and they miss the one character who would have made their journey easier (Old Trumpkin sailed away before they arrived). Nevertheless, all is not lost. Aslan still provides them with the resources they need to succeed in their journey. It is more difficult, but the journey is not spoiled.
So too, we may often make our paths more difficult by our poor decisions – by our selfish, or proud decisions. But we cannot destroy God’s plan if we eventually return and remain willing to undertake His path. When we die and if we ask God what our lives were supposed to be, I am certain there will be many points along our timeline when our way would have been made easier through simply humility, through more expressive love, and through greater faith and courage. Yet, I am equally confident that if we always strive to do our best, and to follow God’s will in our lives, then our vocation is always within our grasp… no matter what age we are.
It is not the specific job that defines the saint. It is our moral disposition. There may be a hundred jobs that could fulfill our vocation. Jesus did not say that everyone had to be a priest, or a sister or scholar, or a teacher. Yet Jesus does speak about vocations and our moral dispositions. He told us through parables about the questions He will ask us when we end our lives on earth. “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” Like the King who separates the sheep from the goats, God will judge us according to how we loved our neighbor. This passage in St. Matthew is often used to justify corporal works of mercy as if, somehow, we are all commanded to be social workers. But that is not the point of the parable. We are all called to do whatever vocation God has called us to, but in that vocation we will be given opportunities to reach out and share and give to our brethren. Those whom the king condemned asked, “Lord, when did we see thee hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to thee?” And Jesus explains that we fail Him when we fail to respond to the opportunities among those who are around us, and who are less fortunate, and who need our help in the moment. Jesus does not say that we failed because of the job that we fell into as our vocation. He says we failed because we missed the specific opportunities that arose. These sorts of corporal works of mercy do not require us all to be social workers, but they do require us all to be ever mindful of the needs of others, and to respond to each opportunity as it arises.
Do we act out of our own desires? Or do we act because it is what God calls from us? These questions define our moral disposition.
The parable of the sheep and the goats comes right after the parable of the three servants of the varying talents – one had ten, one had five, and one had only a single talent. Since I was a young man, I have loved the double meaning of the word “talent” – at least in English. In the Roman times of ancient Israel, a “talent” was a unit of exchange (money). Yet, as a parable, Jesus is also clearly referring to “talent” as a “gift” that God has given to us at birth. What I did not realize until I became an historian, was that the origins of the English word “talent” comes from this parable. Everyone recognized the meaning of the parable, and they started using the old Roman medium of exchange as an expression to represent God’s gifts. So today, we say a man is “talented”, or that woman has many “talents” because we remember the gifts given to the servants in the parable of St. Mathew’s Gospel.
Jesus tells the parable of the talents right before he tells the parable of the sheep and the goats. And the two parables are related – they both speak about man’s purpose in life, and about own individual vocations. The parable of the talents make it clear that God does not distribute his gifts with perfect equality. To some people, He gives more gifts, and to others He gives less. Nevertheless, no matter how many gifts He gives us, we are expected to develop those gifts and to fulfill God’s will. The good news is that the person who started off with 5 talents was able to increase his share to 10 talents over time. This is not an economic investment – if we develop our gifts, then we will see them blossom. And God not only wants us to do develop our gifts, He is expecting us to do so. The example of the person who had only one talent is the model for God’s disappointment in us when we fail to develop what He has given us. We may not all begin with the same number of gifts, but we must all develop them as best we can to fulfil God’s plan for us.
This parable carries a double edge in its meaning. Not only are we not given the same number of gifts, but we are judged equally no matter how many gifts we began with. This is complex, but it means that we are all equal before God. We are all equal before we receive, or develop, our talents. And most importantly, we are also all equal at the end of our lives, when God judges what we did with our talents. It is not based on the number, or the kinds of talents. Obviously the wealthy man is no more honored than the poor man. But neither is the intelligent man more honored than the simple. Nor is the artistic person more loved than the mundane person. We are judged by what we do with our talents only, and not by what they turned out to be.
This is the true source of our humility. Even our own vocation is not judged according to its kind. The priest is not necessarily more blessed than the humble janitor. If both followed God’s will above their own, and did their best to develop their talents, then they are both equal before God. We did not choose our talents, and we do not choose our vocation. We simply follow the path God has given for us, and we do our best with what we are given.
Conclusion
I pray about vocations every day. I pray for my students every day – most of them by name, and almost always I pray for them to discern their vocation. Traditionally I say the following words:
Lord, bless [Student] with the Spirit and wisdom to best recognize their gifts and to discern their vocation. Give them the humility to accept their vocation, the courage to follow it, and the love needed to pursue it with joy and without fear. As always, let your will be done.
Please pray for my students.
And I will pray for you (“… for those who read my words…”)
Amen.
Great thoughts Aharon, thank you for sharing.