The search for vocation is an extremely interesting topic to discuss which we have the happiness today. Let us not miss the opportunity and talk in detail about human self-determination. We will discuss the meaning of the word “calling”, its synonyms, as well as the ways of finding oneself.
Value
The Explanatory Dictionary is cold and offers only two meanings for the word:
- Addiction to any business. For example, “Vasily will become a mathematician by vocation, do not bother him with literature!”
- Matter of a lifetime, purpose. “Since then, helping people with addictions has become his calling.”
But what can a dictionary know about genuine human calling? This, of course, is primarily a philosophical and psychological problem. A drama that unfolds separately in each individual life. Misses, hopes of disappointment, when a person chooses one thing, he thinks: “Here it is!” Then mirages deceive him, he understands that he didn’t choose himself, instead someone else made a choice: relatives, parents, social situation. But he generally wanted the wrong thing and the wrong one.
Yes, the examples are chosen correctly, and the dictionary tells the truth, how can he be mistaken? But history stores the result, and we, among other things, will talk about how to find our place in life and not regret it, but first synonyms.
Swap words
Vocation - this topic is generally quite difficult, therefore, to consolidate the result, we can also recall semantic analogues that will be useful to the reader, and we, in turn, do not have the habit of hiding them from him. Here they are:
- talent;
- destination;
- abilities;
- addiction;
- business (of all life);
- craft (all life);
- talent;
- gift.
Familiar words. It’s not so difficult to find a synonym for “calling”, it’s just very easy. How to understand your personal, individual gift, talent, mission? Next in line is the mechanism for revealing one's own fundamental inclination.
When is the first time a person thinks about choosing a path in life?
This happens at 15-17 years old. The lower limit is high school grade 9, and the upper one is graduation classes. Man is a flexible creature, so he adapts to the requirements of social and biological time. True, there are different points of view. For example, Erich Fromm, a well-known psychologist and philosopher, dropped the phrase in one of his books that the most favorable time for choosing a profession of a lifetime is age closer to 30. This position has its own reasons: a person is already mature enough to consciously choose something . The probability of error is not so great, fears are already less or not at all, because there is experience.
But most people don’t have such luxury. The social and biological dimensions of human existence are inexorable. And then it will only get worse, the speed increases every day. For example, in Japan, children at the age of five are forced to take tests that will determine their entire future fate: which school they will go to, which company they will work in. But the kids still do not know anything about calling. The interpretation of this word is all the more inaccessible to them. Therefore, European and Russian children are still lucky.
They have a moment of self-determination occurs in early adolescence (15-17 years), as already mentioned. Along with the need to choose a life path, maybe for the first time serious reflections appear that inhibit active activity, sometimes harm it. For the first time, a person realizes responsibility for his life and his choice.
Trial and error method
So that fears, like waves, do not swallow a boy or a girl and do not kill children during this period, they must approach the threshold of early youth with specific baggage: mugs, interest clubs, various kinds of games. Then the process of professional self-determination will not be so painful and painful. Although here we are cunning, for calling means suffering. Some things in life cannot come easy, no matter how much you prepare for them.
However, trial and error is still invaluable in solving this problem. If a person is not allowed to leave home, is not allowed to create and experiment, for him the process of self-determination, firstly, can drag on for a lifetime, and secondly, it can be extremely painful.
The child must try, seek, lose, suffer (within reasonable limits), but find himself. If to be persistent, then on the open spaces of being the work of all life will be found, and perhaps several key specialties. The time now is such that in the question of calling (this is proved by practice) you need to be a "multi-instrumentalist", that is, to understand several areas of knowledge at once.
Is it worth waiting for divine insight?
There is such a very harmful myth regarding purpose that, they say, there are people who from the very beginning know what they want from life, who they want to be. Especially often this can be heard from writers. Stephen King and Ray Bradbury admitted that they wrote from the age of 12. And the author of “Dandelion Wine” claimed that he gave out at least 1,000 words every day, starting from this very age. Another hyperpopular writer, George Martin, fantasized about life on other planets from the age of 4 or 5. And they all say they always knew: writing is their calling.
So, this is to a certain extent a combination of circumstances and such insignificant trifles, of which it’s a shame to speak. For example, if modern idols came to their parents tyrannical or evil, they would not be like phenomena. King's mother always supported. Bradbury already had a literary agent at the age of 22, even before he published his first story.
Of course, when it comes to calling, interpreting a word and reflecting on it, different cases come to mind, and here one cannot ignore the stubbornness, will, character of various heroes.
For example, if you read Dovlatov, you can find out: some journalists even went hungry, but did not give up crafts. And this was not because they are frail or arrogant, but simply a vocation - a mysterious thing and does not lend itself to a mathematical formula.
God or nature creates a man or woman with a certain plan, but does not reveal the latter to his children so that it is more interesting for them to live. Sometimes the purpose becomes apparent only in adulthood. Remember that famous example by Bulgakov about a man who has been teaching Roman law for 20 years, and at 21 understands that he really likes to grow flowers, and Roman law, on the contrary, is not at all close to him? If the reader wants to get acquainted with the passage in its original form, we will tell him: he is in the novel "The White Guard".
And all because people lack courage, and maybe experience, to live of their own mind and desire from the very beginning. God has nothing to do with it, this is the struggle that a person must win by himself.