Opus Day 5: Respond to your calling

[Barque]

“A calling is the sense that you are on this earth for a reason, that you have a destiny, no matter how great or small. Those who look at life more soberly might question whether such an attitude is warranted. It may seem naïve. But the sense of calling doesn’t necessarily require belief in the supernatural and it doesn’t have to be naïve.

A calling is a sensation or intuition that life wants something from you. It can give meaning to the smallest acts and helps create a strong identity. If you have a reason for being, you don’t feel entirely aimless. You know who you are and what to do. In a culture where existential anxiety - the worry that nothing is of value and nothing makes sense - is still the order of the day, these are valuable realizations.

Those who believe in God or a higher power or in the intelligence of nature and life have little trouble recognizing the legitimacy of a sense of calling, but still they might feel it lacking in their own lives. Their problem may be that they put too much wishfulness into their belief, expecting life to serve them their destiny in clear and concrete terms. They may want specific direction without the quest and search and sorting out that is also part of the human condition.”

Today’s Work: Give yourself some quiet moments for relaxation and reflection. Think about your quest, searching and sorting. Ask yourself: What does life want from me now?

Share your responses with Barque readers, by replying to this discussion.

[Julianne]

I have often felt divided. One part of me desires one thing, one part another. What is actually happening in this moment is the part that has to be attended to. The other is either in the future or an escape mechansim. Right now, life wants me to accept fully what's happening, or not happening, in the present, and to work on the projects in front of me. Another difficulty I have is that I feel called to work on several kinds of projects at once, and have to find the way to divide my time as effectively as possible. If I neglect one of these projects for too long, I suffer. But now I'm completing one project, and the others have to wait.

[Ann]

Julianne,

I so get this. I have a very active mind that can get me going in many exciting directions at once. This is a strength, the creative part of me. However, it also results in inner chaos when I try to attend to all of them. When I don't move forward in something important to me, I start feeling stuck and frustrated which bleeds into all areas of my life and pretty soon I'm just giving up, which of course leads to more frustration. It's a polarity I constantly struggle with, on one hand I get great energy from having a whole lot of "big ideas" and projects to play with, yet on the other hand I get overwhelmed by trying to manage all of them.

Ann