Sunday, March 13, 2011
Vocational Counselling
A few weeks ago I was invited to speak to a group of young people on the theme of “vocation”. This seems a very dusty and somewhat religious topic: monks have a vocation, Catholics pray “for vocations”, but what does this have to do with young people who wear chucks and facebook each other? A lot, I would hold. Isn’t the most profound question of any human being, young or old, what they are supposed to do with their lives? When we are young, it is a searching question, full of hope and some anxiety, and we are eager to discover what it is that we are meant for. When we are older, the question looks back at the landscape of our life and inquires whether we have given ourselves to something worthwhile or whether we have spent ourselves on a dream, an illusion, or even worse, whether we never got int
o what we were supposed to do. As Stephen Covey puts it “Nobody says on his deathbed ‘ I’d wish I had spent more time at the office’”
One of the greatest painters of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso, was regularly haunted by the question whether he was really fulfilling his potential; the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote ten “Letters to a Young Poet” dealing with the question of finding one’s calling, and the coaching industry is booming as people try to find out what they are supposed to do with their lives. You might even say that the only ones who don’t regularly ask the vocation question are those who drown it out with busyness or noise.
But how will we ever find an answer? Life seems so full of choices and possibilities that one can easily get overwhelmed. And is it not a luxury to ask questions of calling, in the face of subprime crises and unemployment: let us just be grateful for having a job! In 1522 a young Spaniard decided to put together a set of readings or meditations to help some of his friends confront squarely the vocation question. In the course of four weeks he helped them deal with their fears, hopes and the so-common mechanisms of self-deception. The result was
eventually the “Ignatian Exercises” which since then thousands of men and women around the world have followed, often with revolutionary results.
Today is the first Sunday of Lent and God’s people across the world have begun a forty day journey toward the feast of Easter. This old tradition is intended to give all, young and old, a chance to take stock and ask afresh the question “how far have I journeyed”. Men and women decide to fast, that is to give up things which would distract them from what is essential in life: it could be food, drink, shopping, television. The space which they clear out is meant to be filled with time for reflection and prayer.
The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber quotes the old rabbi Zusya who says: “In the world to come I shall not be asked: ‘Why were you not Moses?’ I shall be asked: ‘Why were you not Zusya?’” We do not need to be somebody we are not, let alone measure ourselves with people more gifted, more beautiful or more holy. But the point of life is to become who we are meant to be, to become ourselves. Finding that unique contribution, that calling which nobody else can fulfil, brings unique energy and satisfaction; but it can also be a bit scary, for it might mean changing our lives to accommodate what it requires. But then, we are not alone: roughly a billion people are asking the same question for
the next forty days. So take courage and ask!
