What is your calling?

[Bubala]

I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up! lol

All jokes aside, I guess after surviving 3 wars on two continents (twice as a civilian child and once as a military officer myself) I guess my calling is to close related to - on one hand ever so nerdy academic study of conflict (high and low conflict, conflict prevention and post-conflict resolution) and on the other hand, simple human ability to bare a witness and tell the story for whatever that means.

It's funny...All I seek in life is peace, but time after time I am still somehow drawn to conflict. The more we know, the less we can do....

[imperfect_cupcake]

I've had a few passions that put me in "the zone" in life:

Photography- my dad taught me and I learned how to work in a dark room since I was 10 (I developed pictures for my dad at his work) -I took it up when I was 13 and loved it until my late 20s when someone stole my 35 mm Nikon, my Ziess Icon 2 1/4 studio camera, and all the lenses and filters. I couldn't replace any of it. I just didn't have the money. So I never got back into it.

Cooking - mom taught me very early and when she got sick I had to start cooking for the family whenever she went into the hospital, when I was 11. But I loved it. I had a professional cooking job in two different restaurants and I loved it. I got so much freedom to invent dishes. But I got fed up with the shit wages and went back to higher paid factory work.

Primatology- I loved this. So much. I wound up going from a 2 month stay in Central America to a 5 month stay because I just wanted to stay on and keep researching. I got offered three different jobs. I was good at it. I picked the wrong job. That's life.

Complaints and Governance officer for mental health - I loved this. I shone like a halogen bulb in this. I got to problem solve, investigate, tell assholes to apologise, mediate, help people, and try to improve national health services. <3

Massage therapy - cause I love reading people's bodies, fixing shit, solving problems, making people feel better, understanding physiology, researching pathology, the comradeship with my fellow therapists and classmates. I love touching stuff and understanding what that means - when I feel it. I love being able to touch a muscle and understand from feel what's going on. I love feeling the body let go cause I did a little trick to fool it's reflexes into releasing. It's like Darren Brown magic tricks on the body. I love understanding what the body is doing by touching it. When I massage I am never, ever anywhere else. I am fully 100% always there, mindful, fully engaged, and always happy/astounded with bodies. I swear, laugh, make jokes, tease people, and make people work with me. I love making people laugh through pain on the table. I adore my patients. <3

[RockOn]

helping the abused, pushed aside, forgotten ones .... pit bull and pit bull mix breeds .... or really any dog suffering hardship

[candy_coated_bitch]

My calling is definitely to be an artist. What the looks like on a given day varies, but I always eventually return to the art.

[grenade]

I'm a nuturer. I work with adults with intellectual delays. I make them happy. They make me happy. Win/win. Except it drains me. I get too emotionally involved. I would prefer to have an occupation that would use more of my creativity and artistic ability. I have to pay bills though.

[JDeere]

I am still trying to figure out my calling, I don't really want to be a grown up but it is time.

[deeds]

I've been called to do many diverse jobs in my lifetime from an early age.Wherever my feet and instinct took me ,there I would go.
I am here now listening to whispers in the wind being called to do the father's will in heaven and on earth.

[cinnamongrrl]

I know I belong in the world of healing. In what capacity I'm not entirely sure. I was thinking nursing forever and still am considering it. But I'm not a huge believer in pharmaceuticals. So...

But I've learned from other nursing students that I can be whatever kind of nurse I want to be. So it's not off the table...

Also, my natal chart says I'm meant to farm. And I'm working towards that also. Which excites me a great deal in all honesty...

[*Anya*]

Originally Posted by cinnamongrrl

I know I belong in the world of healing. In what capacity I'm not entirely sure. I was thinking nursing forever and still am considering it. But I'm not a huge believer in pharmaceuticals. So...

But I've learned from other nursing students that I can be whatever kind of nurse I want to be. So it's not off the table...

Also, my natal chart says I'm meant to farm. And I'm working towards that also. Which excites me a great deal in all honesty...

Big pharma is indeed a problem.

The medications themselves can be lifesaving and we do need them.

I have loved nursing and have never had to do anything against my own values and principles. The wonder of nursing is that that the choice of types and places to do nursing, are almost limitless.

You could always do rural nursing.

Rural areas are always short of nurses and doctors.

You could dress a wound and then help the farmer to...do whatever she needed!

You have the heart and soul of a nurse Cinnie.

[cinnamongrrl]

Originally Posted by *Anya*

Big pharma is indeed a problem.

The medications themselves can be lifesaving and we do need them.

I have loved nursing and have never had to do anything against my own values and principles. The wonder of nursing is that that the choice of types and places to do nursing, are almost limitless.

You could always do rural nursing.

Rural areas are always short of nurses and doctors.

You could dress a wound and then help the farmer to...do whatever she needed!

You have the heart and soul of a nurse Cinnie.

Anya...

I can't thank you enough for your continued encouragement. I'm very inspired by you and other nurses who assure me that I can be exactly the kind of nurse I want to be.

Ps. Wound care is my super secret dirty love. I have a thing for it. You totally called it!

[Blade]

I don't know, it hasn't called me yet. I think I will be one of those people who finds my calling later in life, or after becoming a retiree.

[Soft*Silver]

Five years ago I posted I was running a plus size women's clothing store. Wow. That seems so long ago. I have opened it, ran it, got run down running it, closed it and went back to being a mental health therapist for children. I love this job but I am feeling unsettled, like there is something else I am suppose to be doing. Perhaps in 2017 I will figure out what that is suppose to be...

[homoe]

I wished I had been a teacher! I'm not sure if I got the calling or not ..perhaps I just didn't hear it............

[cinnamongrrl]

Originally Posted by homoe

I wished I had been a teacher! I'm not sure if I got the calling or not ..perhaps I just didn't hear it............

It's never too late!!

[Breathless]

I absolutely LOVE this thread!
My passions and my calling are very intertwined. I have held many different positions in my life thus far, my bestie often teases me about when am I going to make up my mind and stick with something, and the truth is.. probably never! I really do enjoy the change.
I worked to survive from a young age, using the skills learned from my Aunt and Oma working in restaurants to make rent money while in highschool, developing my love for the kitchen and creating dishes. From there I went to nursing school, graduated and worked in 2 different positions - one in hospice and the other with developmentally delayed youth. A few years in and I had an accident at work with a client that almost took my ability to walk. So after healing from the surgeries I had to find a new purpose. Great sense of direction and knowledge of the city I live, I went into courier business, then drifted to limo and taxi, including dispatch. Yes, I enjoy driving This is where I currently am, and it is paying for my education in teaching braille. I am fluent and can't wait to start! This I feel is my calling. I have done work in Guatemala that has changed my life, and I can't wait to get back to the little people in the orphanges and seniors who make my heart sing!
I am also very crafty and plan to teach the kids who are interested some of the skills that I have to help secure their futures.

[girl_dee]

Originally Posted by girl_dee

GREAT thread idea.

My calling in life has changed over the years. When i was young it was to survive, i had no time to waste worrying about my calling. i had to put food on the table, that was my only calling. i took many *jobs* hussling and bussling to make ends meet.

When i started my career in banking it didn't fulfill that need i have to help others. i started volunteering. i worked at a home for teenage pregnancy and mothers. i worked with hospice. i worked at the Ronald McDonald house, Childrens hospital. Especially on holidays.

i ended up in New England after Katrina and went to work for a group home withe head injured folks. THAT was awesome. i felt like i was getting paid to volunteer. i wanted to do more, so i went to massage school learning bodywork and was able to work on them, bringing them some comfort. i was in heaven. i was with an alcholic partner and my personal life was in such turmoil i left New England and my dream behind. That was hard. VERY hard.

Now i am in Canada doing what i love again, bodywork. The health challenged, sick, cancer stricken, MS , car accident victims are who i work on. i'm in heaven again. i'm selfish, i have a need to feel good about what i do and i feed that need by doing just that. i am now in a teacher certification course where i can pass down what i know about bodywork and hopefully inspire others to get out there and touch someone!

My other calling? photography i've had a camera in my hand since i can remember. Soon i will be going out there to capture events for people and hopefully have fun doing it.

Wow so much has changed since 2012!

Well i am not longer doing my passion of bodywork, as my hands have pretty much given out. It’s an occupational hazard among bodyworkers.

i’ve discovered a new passion, which is officiating weddings in the LGBT community. i love doing them all, but legally binding two people and hearing each love story has been something i’ve been enjoying for a few years now. i also love marrying heterosexual couples, but my heart is in our community

My goal is to do this full time one day. It may take years but i can do it!

[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)