Achieving Happiness Through Your Calling

Aristotle is reputed to have said, “Where your talents cross with the needs of the world lies your vocation.”

The truth of that is rather obvious, isn’t it?  We could paraphrase the notion to make it even simpler — or perhaps simplistic:  “Look for a job you have some talent for doing”.  Just about everyone knows that’s what you should do.

In a shallow sense, I suppose most of us can find work that’s a match for at least some of our talents.  After all, in the strict sense, a talent is merely an inborn predisposition to doing something, and most of us are innately predisposed to doing very many things.

Were we born with a talent for counting?  Then we can find work as a cashier.   Were we born with a talent for following step by step instructions?  Then we can find work as a cook.  Were we born with a talent for lying?  Then we can find work as a TV reporter on Fox News.   So, if Aristotle means only,  “look for a job you have some talent for doing”, most of us should have no trouble following his advice.

Of course, there’s more to it than that.  The shallowest way of interpreting Aristotle’s advice might indeed be the easiest way to understand it, but it’s also the least fruitful.  So let’s take a closer look at what Aristotle could — or should — have been getting at.

“Where your talents cross with the needs of the world lies your vocation.”   First, let’s change that word “vocation” to “calling”.  In today’s usage, “vocation” too often means little more than a person’s employment.  That’s not the sense of “vocation” I want to get at here for at least two reasons.

First, Aristotle was fundamentally concerned with happiness.  “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”  If we take “vocation” to mean no more than “a person’s employment” we risk missing the crucial point that we are actually talking about one’s calling or life’s work.  That is, we are talking about the kind of work that promotes happiness.

Second, the kind of work that promotes happiness is not necessarily the work one is employed to do.   So, to call the kind of work that promotes happiness your “vocation”, when vocation too often means no more than “a person’s employment”, can be misleading.

I think the word “calling” or the phrase “life’s work” gives us a truer sense of what Aristotle was most likely getting at when he said, “”Where your talents cross with the needs of the world…”.  And if that’s the case, then his advice to us is — for the sake of our happiness — to look for work that calls to us, or that we wish (at least for now) to make our life’s work.

Perhaps our calling is financially rewarding.  I grew up with a friend — a self-made millionaire now — who has told me how lucky he feels to have found work he loves to do.  He says, “Money is less important to me than I’m doing what I love to do.  Suppose I loved to sweep streets; then I would feel lucky to work as a street sweeper, so long as I could make a living at it.”  I believe his happiness comes not from the fact he’s in a financially rewarding line of work, but from the fact he loves what he’s doing.  The man has found his calling.

Yet, should it stop us from pursuing our calling if our calling doesn’t pay the bills?  Of course not!  If we can’t find employment in the work we love, then we should find employment in some job we can do and tolerate — and make a hobby of the work we love. The artist who 17,000 years ago painted bison on the walls of Lascaux cave certainly did art as a hobby, rather than as a job.  Even though there were no jobs for artists back then, he found a calling in art.

“Where your talents cross with the needs of the world lies your calling or life’s work.”  By now, we should understand that our calling or life’s work ought to be something we have a passion for if it is to promote our happiness.  It should be something we’d do for free, if we had to, because we love doing it.  But what work is that?

It is, of course, the work found where our talents cross with the needs of the world.  Since different people have different talents, and since the world has so many needs, there is no stock answer to “Where do my talents cross with the needs of the world?”  Therefore, it’s important to very clearly understand what is meant by “talents” and what is meant by “needs of the world”.

As I mentioned earlier, talents are simply inborn predispositions to do something. It’s only natural for us to work at turning talents into skills.  For instance: Watch a toddler who has a talent for music!  Even without instruction, she is fascinated with music.  She absorbs it like a sponge.  And given any opportunity to do so, she plays at creating music.  In fact, she is very busy turning her talent for music into skills for creating it.  Nearly every parent spots various talents in their kids almost from the moment they are born.  And that’s true even if the parent’s only notion of talent is along the lines of “My baby likes to do x.”

Most of us should know what our talents are, but some of us don’t.  It’s a bit sad to mention this, but one of the most common things that happens to abused children is they don’t know what their talents are.  It’s common for abusers to attack their victim’s efforts to turn their talents into skills and attempt to thwart them from doing that.  An abusive father, for instance, might purposively discourage his son’s athletic talents by forbidding him to play sports and instead force him to pursue things he has little talent for.  In my experience, kids — and not just kids — who have been abused are often confused about and uncertain of what talents they have.  There are any number of other reasons someone might not know what their talents are, but abuse is certainly one of them.

I believe the best way for anyone to recognize a talent they have is for them to pay attention to three things.  First, how fast they develop skills at doing something.  The greater the talent one has for something, the faster one can develop skills at it. Second, how much they like to be challenged in doing something.  The greater the talent for something, the more we like it to challenge us.   Last, how emotionally rewarding it is to do something.  The greater the talent for something, the more rewarding it is to do it.

Perhaps the first step to a happy calling is for us to recognize and develop our talents into skills.  If that’s so, then what are the “needs of the world” that our talents must cross with for us to find our calling?

When Aristotle spoke of the needs of the world, he probably had in mind the needs of humanity.  Humans evolved as a social animal and most of us seem to find some intrinsic value in assisting others to meet their legitimate needs.   Put differently, we enjoy helping others (because we evolved to enjoy helping others).  So, to find a calling or life’s work that will bring us the most happiness, we should probably try to match our talents to doing something that helps others, rather than match our talents to something that only helps us, or to something that harms others.

Now that we’ve looked at the meaning of Aristotle’s famous advice, I’d like to offer a  few comments on it.

First, it seems to me that undertaking a calling or life’s work is of no little importance to creating a sense of meaning or purpose to living.  If someone came to me saying, “I feel my life is meaningless”, I would first ask whether they felt that was a problem.  And if they felt it was a problem, then I would recommend they seek out their calling or life’s work.  In my opinion, a calling or life’s work will produce a greater sense of meaning than anything else — including belief in a deity and the conviction you are saved.

The converse also seems to be true: The lack of a calling or life’s work might very well give us a sense of meaninglessness or of insignificance — even if we believe we are saved by some deity.

Second, it seems to me (even if to no one else) that one of the best things any socially responsible adult can do for society is to find and pursue a calling.  That might ring strange at first, but I am not saying the only thing a socially responsible adult can do for society is to pursue a calling.  I am merely saying it’s arguably one of the best things someone can do for society.  In pursuing a calling, you most likely not only make yourself happier, but the world a bit better.

Next, I think it should be obvious that a calling or life’s work can be nearly any kind of work.  One person might find their calling in building moon rockets — another in raising children — and yet a third in carpentry.  The kind of work you do does not matter.  What matters is whether the work makes use of your talents to meet the needs of the world.

Again, we can have more than one calling or life’s work in our lives.  After all, we have more than one talent and the world has more than one need.

Last, I believe that it is vitally important to find a passion in life.  That is, something you love doing so much, you are willing to grow as a person to do it.  Something that inspires you to achieve your personal excellence.   A calling or life’s work should be precisely the sort of thing that inspires that kind of passion in you.

Well, those are my thoughts this morning on Aristotle’s advice to us.  On the whole, I think it’s pretty good advice.  But what do you think?  Does his bucket hold water or not?