From: Jon Acuff's Blog <jonacuff@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Mar 9, 2012 at 6:05 PM
Subject: Jon Acuff - Blog
To: jcrombie213@gmail.com
Jon Acuff - Blog |
| Why it's so hard to figure out your calling. Posted: 09 Mar 2012 04:51 AM PST The first session of the Quitter Conference is about figuring out what your dream really is. Why? Because that's the thing that stops most of us in our tracks. We don't know what are dreams are. We don't have a sense of what our passions are. We feel like everyone but us knows exactly what their calling is. Why is figuring out our passion so hard? Why is finding our life's purpose feel like such a struggle sometimes? I think it's because figuring out your dream is an act of recovery, not discovery. As I detailed in Quitter But, more often than not, figuring out your calling is an act of recovery, of rescuing something from your past that you loved and you lost. Something that life got too busy for and you stopped doing, or something that someone who mattered to you told you didn't matter. "You think you can do that for the rest of your life?" "How could you ever make money doing that?" "It's time to grow up. That idea is silly." The older we get, the more our dreams get chipped away by life, until eventually a passion we've always had gets covered up by years and years. Finding your true passion is a reunion, not a first date. It's an act of recovery, and recovery is not easy. I love the way David Whyte talks about recovery in this short section from his brilliant book, The Heart Aroused "We could describe Beowulf as a sixth-century consultant. He was a prince and warrior who did not make his home in any one kingdom, but went offering his services to foreign kings for that same mixture of personal honor, self-education, prestige, and personal gain that motivates his modern consultative counterpart. Hearing that Hrothgar, King of Denmark, was suffering the predations of Grendel, a diabolical swamp creature, he presented himself in Hrothgar's hall as the answer to his problems. Apparently, at night, after the feasting and gift giving were done, a large green creature smeared with mud would emerge from the lake, enter the hall, fight off Hrothgar's best warriors, tear men and women limb from limb, and drag their remains back to the swamp. Beowulf is welcomed by Hrothgar, and that night lies in wait for Grendel with his men inside Herot, the king's great hall. Sure enough, in the ensuing fight, Beowulf mortally wounds Grendel, who then staggers back to die in the mire. That night there is tremendous feasting and gift giving. The problem, it seems, has been solved in one swift movement. But that night, as Beowulf sleeps with his men in a different hall, something else comes from the swamp to Herot, fights off the best warriors, and retreats with its human victim. It's Grendel's mother. The message in this portion of the poem is unsparing. It is not the thing you fear that you must deal with, it is the mother of the thing you fear. How many managers or consultants have solved the perceived difficultly in a place of work at the first stroke? Late one night the phone rings and the plant manager tells them that something else just arose from the depths of managerial discontent and is destroying the production and purpose they thought they had. The man who had been taken by Grendel's mother was the closest friend and confidant of Hrothgar. The king is grief-stricken. Visibly moved, Beowulf decides he must go down into the lake where Grendel's mother lives to confront her directly. The people are aghast that he would contemplate such a thing. You can blame the previous generation of managers for the problems you have been handed. You can blame your mother, you can blame your father and his father for the personal problems with which you are destined to wrestle, but ultimately you are the one in whom they have made a home. You are the one who must say Thus far and no farther, and then go down and confront them yourself." Figuring out your calling is hard because it means you might have to face some monsters. You might have to fight some fears. You might have to look beyond all the surface issues and deal with the issues behind the issues. It's scary at times, exhilarating at others, but ultimately, it's worth it. I promise. You don't want to get to 80 or 90 and look back on your life and say "what if? What might have been? What could have happened if I had said, 'Thus far and no farther,' and actually figured out my calling?" |
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Finding our passion is a reunion...An act of recovery!!! I love that!!!
ReplyDeleteDefinitely one of my favorite parts of that post! Glad you liked!
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