Have I found my calling?

This is one question we all must keep asking ourselves. Have I found my calling? Have I found meaning in my life? Am I doing what I really want to do?

Finding your calling really makes you feel good. You look forward to your day. Life becomes a pleasure. Since most of our waking hours are spent working, it is extremely important that we do what we enjoy doing and what we feel satisfied with.

When you are working on something you do not truly love and are working on it simply for the money you are making, life becomes a chore, a burden, something you are doing day after day without really living it.

Your calling does not always have to be something spiritual - a higher good. It can be material. To me, it is doing what you enjoy doing the most. For example, I know that music is Timothy Marthand's calling, developing software is Kartik Thum's calling and painting is Venkateswara Rao's calling.

My calling came to me in the form of an email from Vikram Vuppala with the subject "Request for a brief meeting". Vikram had chanced upon my blog and then sent me an email asking to meet up. At that time, of course, I was firmly into software and had no inkling of how this was going to take over my life. I actually thought I would grow old banging away at the keyboard churning out software code! It started with one small step - informal advice. I slowly started enjoying it so much that I took up a formal role and now am doing this full time.

I often think what my calling would be had I not fallen sick? I feel it would be something to do with food!

There are many people who can go through life without ever finding their calling. That is a real pity. There are some websites that give advice on how to find your true calling. I am not sure that is a good way to do this. I believe that if it is a true calling, it will itself come calling! Like mine did!

Comments

Anonymous said…
Nice post Kamal, I hope this will make a lot of people realize that our career does not have to be locked into our 'formal' education all the time! It's unfortunate that most people find it abnormal to steer away from the field they got 'formal' education in! Anything/everything we learn and know can be used to make a living! It's up to us to figure out what we enjoy!
Anonymous said…
Kamal , nice post . Many ppl do not realise and hear their 'calling' calling them .You did grab your calling , as it was going by .
Nice one kamal!

But, i think. "Finding my calling" will happen to most of the people by LUCK and very less people identify & pursue that.