The Myths About True Calling
“Having a True Calling means you need to quit your day job.”
This myth is probably one of the key origins for the idea of True Calling. If you are already working in a job that is well suited for you, you don’t need to find another job that is more “True” to you. If you are very happy about your job, you won’t have an urge to move towards doing something else because you are already doing what you love. There are many examples where people kept their day job while spending their spare time working on what they called their “True Calling”. I don’t think there is a scientifically objective definition of “True Calling”. It is more an art than science. Although it predominately applies to work context, “True Calling” essentially refers to a recurring activity that is meaningful to you and makes you happy. If you start creating your true calling early, you simply won’t get in the situation where you need to quit your day job to pursue your True Calling because you are already working in your True Calling.
“True Calling is something to be found.”
The common notion of finding our true calling is rather passive and limiting as it presupposes we are given only one true life purpose that are perfect for us to follow. If you were lucky you might be able to find the one perfect job or career path available in the market. However, most people never found it. After all, jobs and career paths are largely designed by the employers for their organizational objectives rather than suiting your personal True Calling. Moreover, as we grow, our preferences, beliefs, and abilities evolve based on the different life experiences we encountered which influence our True Calling. Like the formation of our personality, our True Calling is shaped partly by our innate composition and partly by our acquired capability. It is more like blazing your own trail by choosing and adjusting what you do every day to fulfill your life mission in a way meaningful to you. “True Calling is not a path to be found. It is a trail to be blazed.”
“Just follow your True Calling and the rest will take care of itself including money.”
This myth would work only if you become so great at your True Calling that it creates massive values to other people and you hire a very good business manager. We all know the superstar artists or athletes. But are they the few exceptions or the norm? We also know some of their need to work in odd jobs to make ends meet while developing their crafts to become great. True Calling is more than just doing what you love. If you don’t become great enough to create value for others, it is a hobby funded by your day job. You can really actualize your True Calling when you spend most of your life on your day job that is not your True Calling. For example, if your passion is play video games. Playing it to entertain yourself is not enough to make it into your True Calling. You need to play it in a way that is valuable to the gaming enthusiasts who will be willing to pay for the experience of seeing you play and the advertisers whose relevant products can be advertised to the potential customers. The valuable way can be demonstrating how all the difficult challenges can be overcome by a few simple tricks. Without the financial supports, it is just a hobby and it won’t be sustainable. After all, we cannot simply do what we are passionate about and expect money to come along automatically to pay our bills.
“Each person has one True Calling.”
You don’t need to be Leonardo da Vinci to dismiss this myth. Just look at the people who had their second or third Callings, even after major setbacks. After all, external circumstances change and people change. For instance, if you want become a professional athlete with the mission of bringing joy and excitement to the audience, but a devastating injury cut your career short. You can decide to pursue the career of an athletic coach or sport writer in order to fulfill the same mission. You might want to become the best race car driver in the world, only to find all the race car in the future would be driverless controlled by artificial intelligence programme. Thus, your True Calling can be changed to become the best artificial intelligence programmer in the world.
“People who work in their True Calling are naturally great at what they do.”
It certainly helps but it is not a necessary condition. If you really love what you do, you will be willing to put in the extra time and hard work to master your craft. With the right trainings, becoming great at what you love to do is a matter of time. Someone who is naturally more talented at doing something can learn and master the job in one year, while it may take you 2 years to accomplish that same feat. Nevertheless, they were two enjoyable years for you if the job is your passion.
“Something really bad must have happened in your past for you to have a True Calling.”
It is only one of the many ways that can motivate someone to create True Calling because it triggers strong emotions. If someone you love died because of a malpractice of a doctor, the emotions may be strong enough for you to want to become a great doctor to prevent similar tragedy from happening. However, you can still aspire to become a great doctor by the strong admiration you have for the doctor who saved your life, which is not bad at all. You may simply naturally passionate about medicine and curing people, so you decide to be a great doctor.
“Working in your True Calling is always enjoyable.”
Besides doing the meaningful work you love, True Calling includes Mastery which actualizes your full potential by giving your all to master your craft. The path to Mastery is hard and not always enjoyable. It take hours and hours of practice and repetition every day. You need to continue even when you are extremely tired. You need to take on difficult challenges in order to improve.
“True Calling must be something big and world-changing.”
True Calling is a personal call created by you and only you. It starts with a passion, guided by a meaningful definition, and actualized by mastery of your actions. It can be as big and world-changing as you create it to be. Working in a stable routine job is “big” can be big to you if it means you are supporting your family with a stable income. It can be “world-changing” because you are changing the world of your family by financing your kids to go to University.
“True Calling will call on you one day, so just wait for it.”
That’s one of the reasons why most people never have a True Calling. Assuming you are really born with the legendary True Calling, which gave your powerful talent to achieve your life purpose, you just go about your normal life waiting for the hidden power to call upon you one day. However, the environment you grew up in and the people around you may have different ideas for you. You may live in an era where your True Calling is not needed. You may be forced into working in an non-True Calling job because you simply need to take the first job you could take to support for your family. Your friends may influence you to pursue a cooler career path. Your parents may want you to be in certain occupation. For instance, if your parents are both professional musicians, growing up in an environment where you listened to, played, or talked about music during most of your childhood would make it very likely for you to have a career path relevant to the music industry. Maybe one day you would have an epiphany as if your True Calling had called on you, but you would not know when it would be. While it is unlikely be the moment you were born, it can be when you were still studying at school before your first job if you are extremely lucky. However, it can when you already had too much other commitments imposed by external circumstances and social influences that you simply won’t pursue it. It could be a few minutes before you died or it may never come. To take back more control of your True Calling, you need to “call” it proactively which is more risky and need to take more responsibilities. We all have our shares of making the wrong calls in our lives and some of the wrong decisions cost us dearly. A wrong call could stop you from going any further or it could be the inevitable steps to create your True Calling if you learn from it and adjust accordingly. “True Calling is not a call made by others for you. It is a call made by yourself proactively.”