Quite often you hear people speak about their job. Our friends, family, spouse, and coworkers. The government often makes reference to the number of jobs, they pride themselves on it. Heck even songs are written about them. Would you say that any type of work is a job? What exactly is a job in the first place? Oxford dictionary defines a job as “a task or piece of work, especially one that is paid.” Well they certainly did one heck of a job making that sound unexciting.
Amy Wrzesniewski, researcher of organizational behavior at Yale University explored the distinction between jobs, careers, and callings. She didn’t even need to define anything and things are already sounding a heck of a lot more exciting than a job, sorry Oxford. Amy defined a job as being basically just a way to pay the bills, a career as a path toward increasingly better work, and a calling as work that was important to ones life, something that was vital to their very identity. Can you imagine if the government was doling out callings? What a world that would be huh?
All of this talk about callings might have you feeling like you’re missing out if you haven’t found something you’re totally passionate about. Interestingly enough, Amy found that the people who were the happiest and most passionate in their work were not the people who followed their passions. These people were the ones that were around long enough to have become really good at what they do.
They probably didn’t set out originally with any passion at all. It turned out that they developed their passion through what they did overtime. Maybe we too can cultivate our own passions. Lets get that ball rolling!
Whatever you are, be a good one.
Abraham Lincoln
Jordan Hutchison 