Dear Zoe,
Today, I’d like to discuss the difference between work and vocation. But of course, feel free to skip this letter if you managed to snag a handsome young man of affluence who vowed to take care of all your needs and allowed you to live out your highest calling.
The word vocation is rooted in the Latin for ‘voice’, and in ancient times, people believed that vocation is not just work, but a calling from God Himself. Vocation is something that God created you in this life for…
Work, on the other hand, is something you do to get money; it has nothing to do with purpose or meaning.
The root of many young people’s frustration is the failure to distinguish the two.
When I was young, books on the subject of finding your passions in life were very popular. These books promised that if you fill out some questionnaires or follow some 7 steps, you will discover your life purpose and be rewarded for it. They said that if you follow their advice, you can find a job that is enjoyable, meaningful, and profitable.
At the time, many young people, myself included, followed the voice of these sirens and sought to discover our passions in life and make money out of it. Some of us succeeded, but many others, like myself, didn’t, or at least not yet.
Perhaps it was because some of us lacked grit, experienced bad luck along the way, like COVID, or we merely stumbled upon the fact that some callings in life can’t be monetized.
A calling in life is ultimately something subjective, and for it to be valuable, enough people have to find it meaningful enough to value it with money. However, the fact is, to the world’s eyes, some callings just will never be valuable. Some callings, like becoming a parent or a teacher (at least in Indonesia), will never make you rich.
However, just because the money is not there, it doesn’t mean that a calling is not important. Take raising a kid, for example; despite its importance in society, nobody would pay a premium for mothers or even nannies to raise children. Nobody got rich by becoming a parent or a nanny.
And hence it is better to separate the money and calling issue altogether.
Money is the reward the world gave you for the work it deemed important. That perception can be right, but it can also be wrong
On the other hand, the reward of a calling is not money, but the work itself. Money is good, but it should not be a justification for whether a calling is good or bad, whether it is worth pursuing or not.
Take, for example, the Apostle Paul. His vocation is to preach the Word of God, but at that time, pastoring a Church didn’t get you rich. So you know what he did? He works as a tentmaker to supply for himself.
Or take, for example, J.K. Rowling before she became a popular novelist. Do you know what she did? She worked as a waitress by day, took care of her children (she’s a single parent) by the afternoon, and wrote during the night or early morning. It was not easy to juggle these priorities, but she still carve out time to live out her calling.
So what if you have a calling that can’t seem to be monetized?
Follow the steps of Apostle Paul and J.K. Rowling: get a job and take care of your calling. Use that job to free up your time to do more of your calling, and hopefully, at one point in time, you can make a career out of your calling.
I pray, Zoe, that you will be able to live out your highest calling.