Consider this/ Einfach zum Nachdenken

This question is put to every 8-12 year old by “grown-ups”, and the answers range from cowboy to austronaut and nurse. As grown-up age approaches, this question is asked ever less frequently, even though (or maybe because) its seriousness increases. Two assumptions underlie this question: first that there is something we should put our mind and heart to, a unique contribution we should make to society, and that making this contribution would make us happy. The second is that we have a choice, i.e. that once we discover what it is we are supposed to do we can decide to do it.

Most of us remember career seminars which we took while in high-school, with test results telling us that we should either become prime minister or a ballet dancer. This has made us somewhat suspicious of the notion that we can actually figure out our vocation. At the same time, we have this lingering notion that if we actually did what we were made to do, we would be happy. Maybe the Bible was right in saying “To find enjoyment in one’s work — this is the gift of God.” Is it presumptuous to think that we are special, that we have a mission, possibly even from God? This question is at the heart of Sam Mendes’ recent film “Revolutionary Road”: April is trying to convince Frank that living in suburbia, “buying into the same things as everyone else”, is not what they are supposed to do, because “they are special”.

But let us suppose for a moment that we are, that we have a vocation, a mission, even though many of us seem to struggle to discover it. Can we just choose it, just like Dan Briggs in Mission Impossible? Or do circumstances dictate whether we ever embark upon our mission? It is true that life is not completely under our control. But Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross was not totally wrong when she confronted a class of students by asking “Who of you enjoys what they are doing, raise your hands! Those of you who have kept your hands down, go change your job tomorrow!” Her premise was that too many of us are dissatisfied with our lives, yet never take the step to change anything about it- a lesson Kuebler-Ross had learned by interviewing countless terminally-ill patients. April and Frank similarly never take the step to go to Paris, even though they had talked and dreamed about it for days. Why is that?

It is easy to dream, but to pay the price for one’s dreams is much harder. It is one thing to complain about the job one is in, another to actually go out and look for another, and thus to risk. As April puts it “It takes backbone to do what you want”. Again, some of us do not really have a choice; their life circumstances dictate that they put bread on the table, and if it means doing something they don’t enjoy, so be it. Many in the developing world never dream of vocation: simply eking out an existence is hard enough. But some of us sell themselves short of what we could, and should do, and the reason is fear. The notion of rising above the daily grind and of aspiring to greatness makes us dizzy, and we prefer to turn on the TV and sink back into our armchair. But to quote April one last time: “No one forgets the truth; they just get better at lying”. In other words, some dissatisfaction with current circumstances is meant to lead us to change; it is God’s way of telling us to embrace our vocation and calling. We can silence that voice by keeping busy or by turning up our I-pod, but the truth won’t go away. The ancient philosophers had a term: pusillanimity- the vice of being timid and cowardly, and thus not living up to one's full potential. Might this describe some of us? So why not accept “Mission Impossible”, why not go to Paris, why not become an austronaut?

# posted by tino @ Wednesday, May 06, 2009 0 comments