What is your calling?

[CherylNYC]

This is such an interesting moment for me to be reading this thread. I'm a professional sculptor/scenic artist, and I'm pretty good at it. People actually pay me by the hour to be an artist. What I do is fairly arcane, but there are many people who want to do what I do so badly that they actually will work for free, or nearly free, to try to break in. I'm well respected, and I'm at the top of my tiny, arcane field. I make a decent living as an artist in NYC. Is it my calling? Well, probably-maybe.

I get paid to make things that other people ask me to make. Hands for hire. I rarely make my own work anymore. I lost quite a few of my original pieces in Hurricane Sandy, including the largest, most recent piece that many thought was one of my finest sculptures. Most of my sculptures that weren't destroyed were damaged. Some heavily. I haven't made an effort to repair those old pieces. I haven't made anything new in awhile. A long while.

It's kind of messing with my identity but what I really want to do when I leave work after 10 intense hours of being a scenic artist/sculptor, is ride my motorcycle. No one is ever going to pay me to ride, and that might even ruin it for me, but it's what I love. I used to make more time to make and show my own sculptural work, but then I had some losses and now... well, I don't care much about art anymore. During my work day I care intensely that the thing I'm working on must be perfect and gorgeous. I'm infamous for my perfectionist drive on each and every thing I touch at work. Then I leave the building, put the key in the ignition, and I can barely remember what I was working on.

Not only do I love to ride my motorcycle, I love to enable others to ride as well. I teach skills in the parking lot. I used to instruct on the racetrack. Now I just spend all my money riding my bike at the track. Because it makes me happy. Once again, I'm not in it for the money. That's not why I teach. And it's certainly not why I'm doing the motorcycle activist/advocacy work that has consumed me for the last two months. This particular advocacy project has actually cost me money because I'm self financing all the costs, such as copying, for the work that I'm doing around a proposal the Governor has made which will affect all of us for as long as we live in NYC.

It seems I'm pretty good at this advocacy work, too. I have some supportive, activist friends who are helping me here and there, but if this works I will have changed things for the better for all of us, and I will have done it mostly by myself. There are those who assume that motorcycle rights advocacy is my calling, too. I've got the proverbial fire-in-the-belly now, but I know myself. I probably won't sustain it after this project draws to what I think and hope will be a successful conclusion. I'll want to move on to something else entirely for awhile.

Maybe I don't have a single calling. Maybe things call me for a moment, or a few months, or a few years, and then something else calls. Does it always have to be one calling?

[EnchantedNightDweller]

Teacher for at-risk kids. Somehow it was just meant to be. I resisted at first but then the kids stole my heart. I like to think I provide them with a stability they desperately need. I work at a school where they are surprised and thrilled to have teachers return from winter break. Teachers don't stay here. It's easier to go work in the suburbs where students don't face challenges and obstacles that keep them from learning. You don't have to work as hard. Success comes easily. But I'm not going to be one of the ones that leaves. I want to see them come back to visit when they are in middle school and high school. Maybe even when they bring their own kids to school. 😊

[girl_dee]

Originally Posted by CherylNYC

Maybe I don't have a single calling. Maybe things call me for a moment, or a few months, or a few years, and then something else calls. Does it always have to be one calling?

i sure hope not, because i’ve had many. i think there is a big difference between a calling and a whim.

when i do shift gears, i do lots of research and try to get a realistic idea of whether it’s feasible. If so, i jump. When i don’t love it anymore, i move on.

i’ve loved being a Jane of many trades. People have told me i lack stability in sticking to anything for a long time, but for me, i love having new blood in my system when it comes to what i do.

[puddin']

i've had many diff'rent callings over the years. yet i always come back to mental health work, specifically working with folks in residential settings. (crazy is as crazy does i reckon! lol)