What is my purpose? What am I here to do? I think most of us have have asked ourselves (or God) these questions at one time or another. I admittedly envy the people who have a great answer for this question...
Your Calling
One of the ideas that was rediscovered during the Reformation was the idea of "vocation" or "calling." You see - only those in the Roman Catholic Church had a calling - priests, monks, nuns, etc. were called by God, and everyone else was not.
But in truth we are each called (by God) to do the best we can in the various roles we have in life. Are you a father, mother, husband, wife, sister, brother, son, daughter, homemaker, employee, etc?
Each of these is a calling - something that we are called to do to the best of our ability.
How different would the world be if each of us tried to be the best husband, father, or employee we could be?
Would jobs be better if owners and bosses tried to be the best owner or boss they could? What if all employees were the best employees they could be?
Most people dislike their jobs or at least have many things they would rather be doing. It shouldn't be this way. That job is one of your callings - one of your vocations. You should do it to the best of your ability (even if you aspire to other things).
If you are the best employee you can be in your current role, do you think that improves your chaces of getting a better job down the road? I do. Even if your goal is (as mine was) to get away from being an employee, that's no excuse for being the best employee you can as long as you are in that vocation.
Confessions of a Dishonest Employee
OK - confession time for me:
I was not a perfect employee. Office supplies ended up at my house. I spent time on the clock taking care of personal business.
Of course, nearly everyone does this, so it's OK, right? Wrong? Stealing is stealing. Period. It took me being able to look at this situation from the outside to figure this out.
If your wife called and said your daughter needed a red pencil for a homework assignment - could you bring one from the office, what do you do?
Now imagine that the office supplies are sold in a store at your office - the pencil is $0.10 and the petty cash box is open with noone around. Would you take a dime and use it to buy a red pencil?
The situations are effectively the same, but most people answer those two questions differently (I know I used to).
I was looking at accepting a job offer recently, and I realized a lot of the things I had done wrong in my last job, and I was thinking about how to avoid them in my new job. Would I have been perfect? No. But I like to think that I would have been a lot better and thought about my actions more thoroughly.
Vocation and Family
I really think we have lost the idea of vocation in the family.
Never before have men been so quick to abandon their roles as husband and father.
Never before have women been so quick to abandon their callings as wife and mother.
We have not taken our family vocations seriously, and this cannot help but spread outside the home as well.
To overgeneralize:
- Kids have a lot less respect for their parents than they used to.
- Husbands and wives have a lot less repect for their roles (and marriage in general) than they used to.
- CEOs have less repect for their employees than they used to.
- Employees have less respect for their bosses than they used to.
Instead of maximizing what we get, we should be maximizing what we give. The rewards follow (or maybe they don't - but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it).
Most things I have done in my life were done selfishly. I need to start doing more for others - taking others into account in my decisions.
And not pretending like I am doing things for others by stealing a red pencil for my daughter either...
So, What's Your Point?
That's a great question - I guess I want each of us to take more pride in our various roles in life. I know I need to do this - especially in my role as husband and son (no kids yet).
And I'm not sure everyone thinks about this. I didn't think about it much until recently, and I don't think many of us do.
These little (or big) actions slide under the radar of our conscience:
- Got too much change back at Albertson's and didn't say anything? Congratulations you stole from Albertson's. (Though if you are like me you are quick to go to customer service if you are shorted change!)
- Put 5-1/2 gallons in your "5-gallon" water refill? Congratulations - you stole water from Wal-mart. (Ask me how I know about this one - just figured that out a few weeks ago!)
- Live with your giflfriend before marriage? "Everyone does it." Increasingly true but still adultery.
- Gossip about someone at work? Congratulations - you just broke the 8th Commandment (the one we never talk about).
Your True Purpose
Your purpose is to perform your best in the roles you are already in.
Even if you are meant to do bigger and better things down the road, that does not excuse you from doing the best you can now.
I think we all know people that never became great in the eyes of the world but had a profound impact on many people simply by being the best mother, teacher, grandmother, or friend that they could. Always ready with a smile and a helping hand...
If each of us could be like that in each of our callings, I like to think that the world would be a much better place.
