Do you have a calling?

I am very lucky. Every experience in my life led me to the job I have now. It’s why I was born.

No. I wish I did. I do feel the need to make businesses consistent and more user friendly lately. Whether it be going back to merchandising in stores again, or like I’m at a hotel and I see all these little things that would be helpful. Even developing products would be along the same line. Anything from small
appliances to cars.

I have the same feeling as @Hawaii_Jake . I’m retired.

I like telling stories and keeping people informed.

To crush my enemies, to see them driven before me, and to hear the lamentations of their women.

I didn’t know my profession existed, but the day I found it – as a junior in college – I knew it was a good fit. Over 25 years later and I still love what I do.

Yes and no. There are things that I enjoy, and things that I’m good at, and things that can be turned into income… pick any two.

I often have the feeling of being out of place here… that I would have done better in another time, or in a different body. I have no ambition to be a great anything, really… I just want to be content.

I’m a dual class level 1 bard/level 0 commoner.

Talking, talking, and talking.

Teaching. No matter where I’ve worked, I have ended up teaching in some capacity. Obviously, the teaching and training jobs were intended to be that way. Everywhere else, teaching would fall into my realm.

Solving technical problems

Communicating with kids.

Originally, I wanted to be a paleontologist, then I switched to wanting to be an archaeologist, then in college I came across cultural anthropology, which is what I’m going for. Archaeology is anthropology, so I’m still in a branch of what I always wanted to be, but I might go for archaeology, too. Sometimes I think dealing with dead people would be easier than dealing with living ones. :D

Photography. I hope to make money from it one of these days.

I have too many pots on the stove to say for sure, but after this many years, I’m inclined to think not.

I’ve tutored the young, the disabled, and every FNG that has been put under my command. I’ve been an electrician, an machinist, an auto mechanic, and an IT guy; four different fields each require in-depth knowledge yet have relatively little overlap. That doesn’t even get into my hobbies, though I am casual enough about those that I don’t get too deep once the math involved stops using numbers.

@DrasticDreamer You seem to like studying what people were like while I’ve always been more interested in what they are like; a little anthropology, a bit more psychology, some inevitable theology… and some alcohology for coping.

@jerv Haha! :) I’m also fascinated with what people are like (many people have told me to consider psychology). However, I’m just not sure how much I could deal with. People, after all… :D

I wouldn’t say I have a calling. I wanted to do the work I do, but a ‘calling’ would be too strong. I still have pangs of ‘what will I do when I grow up?’. I am an excellent teacher (blowing my own trumpet here). I’ve won awards, including a national award, for my teaching. I do love working with students. Even so, I wouldn’t describe myself as having a calling.

@DrasticDreamer You’d be amazed how much you can learn by reading stuff written by others who have done the “dealing with people” part for you.

My fictional characters have always been calling me to bring them to life. I’ve done it to some of them throughout my life, but most of them are for my own pleasure. More appear and more want to go. Right now I’m still too young to know for sure if I can make anything out of them or they will remain my secret.

I probably should have been an attorney. I think like one when I approach an argument or a negotiation.

Yes. Sadly it is highly impractical to pursue.

Yes, to be the best me, there is. But I did always want a family of my own, and be the best mom and wife possible, and teach my children how to love, laugh and enjoy life in the hopes that they will do the same with their children. As close as a calling you can get with me.

Something that involves talking to people, preferably in a calm, laid back setting.

No, but I have voices in my head. Does that count? Even more if they bring their friends!

I was fortunate that I sort of stumbled into teaching and found that I loved it and was quite well suited for it.

The primary reason I went to a teacher’s college is because it was what I could afford at that period of time. But I didn’t think I would actually be a teacher once I had my degree. I thought I’d like being a journalist either for a newspaper or the A.P.

The program I was majoring in was teaching HS English (since I had always been naturally good at spelling, grammar, etc.)

But one summer I worked as a camp counselor for 8–9 yr. olds. I realized how much I really enjoyed that age group. They were old enough to be fairly independent (tying shoes, dressing themselves etc.) but they were young enough still to not yet be jaded, snotty and difficult to handle.

So, when I was offered a job teaching 3rd grade, it was a perfect match and I never looked back.

I’m retired now but I thoroughly enjoyed my teaching years. I was lucky to find the right job which was a joy to go to each day.

I have a calling for teaching mathematics, but I never pursued that career. I have done some tutoring and from time to time I like to present math problems on Fluther. I don’t have the ability or inclination to teach at a college level but, under the proper circumstances, I would have enjoyed teaching at the level of middle or high school. The problem is that the constraints that teachers are put under would not be acceptable to me, and the problem has only gotten worse. The constant testing and the resulting teach to the test approach takes all the joy out of math. The mathematician Paul Lockhart wrote a widely circulated paper contrasting his (and my) idea of the ideal math teaching situation with the way that math is actually taught.

@LostInParadise great article

Thanks, all. Interesting. I can’t even imagine concentrating on just one of my favourite areas, there are so many others I would miss. I find myself bouncing around from interest to interest.

I don’t know what my calling is but it’s creepy that in yoga class today the instructor asked us to as ourselves “what is your calling?” Maybe I better think about it?
Off the cuff I would say that my calling is “to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. ”