I have questions

  There are those that say they have answered their calling. Usually that means some religious experience, that's what comes to mind, but it can mean your vocation as well. Some are called to teach, others to paint or write. I'm still listening. I haven't heard any voices telling to do anything but get a job, be productive. It is something of a mindset I suppose. When I was growing up, I didn't hear much about pursuing my dreams, as I did about getting a job. That's the way it was in my house anyway. Yes, playing an instrument, singing, dancing, maybe writing a little verse or painting a picture were admirable pastimes, but that is what they were, pastimes. The business of living and providing for a family was something quite different from that. Childhood is for doing those sorts of things. 

 You could follow in your father's footsteps, that was always a good choice, a respectable choice. Everyone I knew had a father, with the exception of a set of twins. The whereabouts of their father was unknown to me, and I don't recall anyone ever saying anything about that. That sort of stuff wasn't talked about in polite company back in those days. It was none of my business. I never asked. But not everyone followed their dad's vocation and learned a trade of their own. I joined the Navy right after high school and so lost track of the majority of my classmates. I have no idea what most of them did after high school. Some went to college, I'm sure of that and some just got a job. Did any of them have a calling? I don't know, none that I heard about anyway.

 I went in the Navy and spent four years there. It wasn't my calling that much became clear to me, turns out I wasn't that "gung-ho" after all. I returned to my hometown and took up a vocation. I began to learn to do upholstery. It was a nice trade, I enjoyed it, and the results were usually satisfying. It was a good time, but fate intervened and for reasons I'd rather not say, I went back into the Navy for the benefits it provided. I wasn't answering a calling. I stayed there for another sixteen years just doing my job. It's what you do. Following that I got various maintenance positions with the skills I had learned over the years. Never did find that one job that I just loved. All of them were just that, a job. 

 I'm beginning to think that not everyone gets a calling. Fact is, I'm beginning to think it is only a calling when you decide to make a calling. I've always said the hardest person to convince should be yourself and I stand by that. I may tell others I'm certain, I'm convinced, I'm absolutely positive but I always have a bit of doubt. Life has taught me that much, if nothing more. I wonder if I missed my calling or if there ever was one in the first place. Maybe I just wasn't listening. I've been accused of that on more than one occasion. I still get accused of that.

 Now answering a calling and just doing what you like to do are different things altogether. I believe some folks fail to see the distinction and that's why they feel like they have answered a calling. They have convinced themselves of that, sometimes despite popular opinion. It's the only way I can explain why some do the things they do. Perhaps it is nothing more than ego. I do hear an awful lot about people being empowered these days. Never heard that in the 1960's, and in the 1970's we just became cool. At least we were encouraged to be cool. We weren't empowered, just told it was okay to do your own thing. Guess that is being empowered when you think about it. 

  I like to believe that we are all here for a reason. It could just as easily be all random. That all depends upon the view of God you take. Does God plan everything? Or did God create everything and just set it in motion? That's what Deists believe. Seems to me if a God created something it was for a purpose and therefore it would have to do something. That just leaves us with the big question, what is the purpose? When will that purpose be fulfilled? And when it is, what then? I hear a calling for answers. Thing is, I don't have any of those answers. I'm not convinced. I am convinced that there is an answer. Maybe that is what death is, knowing the answer. If that is so, I have questions.