The fact that an individual is exercising his true vocation does not guarantee him happiness. One cannot doubt that Van Gogh was called to paint, but the fact that he frenetically followed his calling did not relieve him from his inner torment. Indeed, sometimes we suspect that such inner torment may be an essential ingredient of the calling. Even Picasso, who lived so exuberantly into a seemingly joyful old age, apparently suffered a degree of restlessness that few could tolerate for long.
But God does call each of us in our own way to success, although such success has little to do with the world's measurements. Picasso's wealth, power, and fame were not his success; his art was. Van Gogh's poverty was not a failure any more than Christ's execution as a petty, provincial, political criminal was. A person fulfilling a true vocation as a homemaker will raise his or her children to the glory of God while the life of a tycoon may look dismal in God's eyes.
The secular definition of vocation usually implies only income-producing activity. The religious meaning of the word-which is how it will be used throughout the remainder of this book-is infinitely broader. So we may speak not only of vocations to business and brick-laying, art and aviation, soldiering and science, but also vocations to celibacy, marriage, or the single life, to homemaking and retirement, to parenthood and childlessness, to gardening and globe-trotting-to any activity or condition at all, no matter how poetic or prosaic, that God means for us.
While the fulfillment of a vocation does not guarantee happiness-as in the case of Van Gogh-it does often set the stage for a kind of peace of mind that may result from fulfillment. It is, therefore, frequently a pleasure to witness a human being doing what she or he was meant to do. We delight when we see a parent who truly loves taking care of children. There is such a sense of fit. The man who promotes many of my speaking engagements likes to tell how 'even back in college I somehow always found myself the chairman of the program committee.' I myself have no taste for such things as negotiating with a hotel over the size of a ballroom, checking sound systems, laying out the coffee, or crating and uncrating books, but I enjoy seeing the enjoyment he actually gets from these activities. And he's good at it. That's why I do so much work with him. He's a good promoter, a successful organizer.
Conversely, there is always a sense of dis-ease when we see people whose work and life-style does not fit their vocations. It seems such a shame, a waste. The sergeant major I described was wasting his artistic talent and other abilities as well. It was despite himself that he rose to the rank he did (although he should have risen to a much higher one) just as it was despite herself that Abby didn't flunk out of high school. Bearing in mind that success is always relative, however, the denial of vocation invariably breeds a lack of success and personal misery. I have seen women who married into great wealth, for instance, who would be considered successful in the world's terms, whose jewels and position were the envy of multitudes, but who lived in despair because they were never called to marriage in the first place.
Since they are so accustomed to seeing people trapped in roles having nothing to do with their vocations, I do not know any psychotherapist-male of female-who has not been basically a supporter of the women's liberation movement. We have all seen women who married not because marriage was their vocation, but merely because it was what they felt was expected of them, and who had children not because they liked motherhood, but because they felt they had no other option. And who then, in their old age, berated themselves for causing their children's difficulties when they did the best they could operating out of pure duty. The women's movement is indeed one of liberation: it has freed women to not have children, to not get married; to be actresses, businesswomen, and construction workers when that has been their calling. It has also liberated men to follow their vocations, to-when appropriate-be homemakers and nurturing fathers without having to bring home the bacon.
Yet we still suffer from a lack of understanding of the individuality of vocation and from our tendency to stereotype. The one downside of the women's movement is that it has led a few women to feel uneasy with their calling to heterosexuality, marriage, and motherhood and some men to feel guilty over a lack of vocation to housecleaning and child raising. This is stated not to denigrate the movement in the least, but simply to warn that stereotypical liberation becomes its own variety of imprisonment.
So God's unique vocation for each of us invariably calls us to personal success, but not necessarily success in the world's stereotypical terms or means of measurement. Nonetheless, upon occasion, God does call us to positions the world also calls great. One of my relatives, distant family legend goes, had a clear calling to be a drummer boy in the Civil War-at the same time that Abraham Lincoln had what seems to me to have been a true vocation to both the presidency and to greatness. So I think there is a distinction to be made between 'humble' and 'grand' vocations. As I suppose fits the needs of society, most men and women have humble vocations. I do not want to imply that such humble vocations are less in God's eye than grander ones. Among us Christians, we sometimes speak of 'noisy Christs' and 'quiet Christs,' and we generally consider the role of the quiet Christ to be the nobler one. Indeed, the humble vocation, such as that of a blacksmith, may be crucial. As the old saying goes: 'For want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe, the horse was lost; for want of a horse, the general was lost; for want of a general, the victory was lost; for want of a victory, the nation was lost.'
But there is a special problem that afflicts the minority who have grand vocations: a 'personal sense of destiny.' To my knowledge this problem-or condition- has never been adequately addressed in scientific literature or, for that matter, in any literature at all. Being deeply familiar with it both personally and professionally, I address it here because its mention may serve to relieve a certain amount of unnecessary suffering for some readers.
By sense of destiny, I mean the deep, but often inchoate, sense that perhaps five to ten percent of the population have, usually beginning in childhood or adolescence, that they are supposed to do great and glorious things in their lifetime. Perhaps a quarter of the time this sense is profoundly unrealistic. Indeed, it seems to be a particular characteristic of a variety of schizophrenia. Psychiatrists refer to it as 'grandiosity.' Such people feel as if they are-or at least should be- great and powerful when, in reality, they are utterly lacking the personal, spiritual, or intellectual assets that make for greatness. Perhaps because they are unable to bear the disparity between the reality and the feeling, they bridge the gap by plummeting into a realm of pure fantasy where they believe they have already achieved greatness. So they may sit, without any discernible talent at all, in the back ward of a psychiatric hospital, firmly believing that they are in that position precisely because they already are the 'messiah.' After all, what does the world do to messiahs but deny them by labeling them mentally ill and crucifying them with the meanest of treatment?
The other side of the coin, however, is that I have never known a genuinely talented person who achieved 'greatness' without a sense of destiny-who did not, years before such achievement, experience an almost burning sense that she or he was called to grand and glorious achievements. An example of this phenomenon was Sigmund Freud. At the age of twenty-eight, a whole decade before the publication of the work that began to make him famous, he wrote to his fiancee:
Freud was not always so confident. He frequently worried during this same period that his ambition was not paying off. For him and for most who have genuine grand vocations, their sense of destiny may be a very significant burden. Experiencing inklings they are destined to do `something particularly important' in the world, they may begin to doubt their sanity. As a psychiatrist, I have had to assure some such men and women that they were quite sane. Despite this reassurance they often began to wonder if they were not doing something seriously wrong. Their feeling was not that they would for certain do great things, but that they ought to be doing great things. They feel guilty. If God was indeed calling them to greatness, it certainly seemed they were letting God down. Some of these patients never have made seemingly great achievements, as far as I know. But others have, and their greatest joy was then not their fame, but their relief. Their destinies had finally, finally begun to catch up with them.
I do not know you. If you have a sense of destiny, I cannot certify that sense, sight unseen, to be perfectly sane. And even if I met you, it is unlikely I could prophesy-no matter how sane you are-that you will, in fact, do the great things you feel you ought to be doing. I cannot relieve you of the burden. But I can tell you two things. One is that your sense of destiny is not necessarily a sign of mental instability; indeed, if you are past the age of twenty-five and not doing too badly, it is extremely unlikely. The other is that your sense of destiny may be a perfectly valid sign that you do have a grand vocation-that you are called to do great things, although that calling will likely be worked out in ways that you currently can't even begin to imagine.
Extracted from M Scott Peck's A World Waiting to be Born.
But God does call each of us in our own way to success, although such success has little to do with the world's measurements. Picasso's wealth, power, and fame were not his success; his art was. Van Gogh's poverty was not a failure any more than Christ's execution as a petty, provincial, political criminal was. A person fulfilling a true vocation as a homemaker will raise his or her children to the glory of God while the life of a tycoon may look dismal in God's eyes.
The secular definition of vocation usually implies only income-producing activity. The religious meaning of the word-which is how it will be used throughout the remainder of this book-is infinitely broader. So we may speak not only of vocations to business and brick-laying, art and aviation, soldiering and science, but also vocations to celibacy, marriage, or the single life, to homemaking and retirement, to parenthood and childlessness, to gardening and globe-trotting-to any activity or condition at all, no matter how poetic or prosaic, that God means for us.
While the fulfillment of a vocation does not guarantee happiness-as in the case of Van Gogh-it does often set the stage for a kind of peace of mind that may result from fulfillment. It is, therefore, frequently a pleasure to witness a human being doing what she or he was meant to do. We delight when we see a parent who truly loves taking care of children. There is such a sense of fit. The man who promotes many of my speaking engagements likes to tell how 'even back in college I somehow always found myself the chairman of the program committee.' I myself have no taste for such things as negotiating with a hotel over the size of a ballroom, checking sound systems, laying out the coffee, or crating and uncrating books, but I enjoy seeing the enjoyment he actually gets from these activities. And he's good at it. That's why I do so much work with him. He's a good promoter, a successful organizer.
Conversely, there is always a sense of dis-ease when we see people whose work and life-style does not fit their vocations. It seems such a shame, a waste. The sergeant major I described was wasting his artistic talent and other abilities as well. It was despite himself that he rose to the rank he did (although he should have risen to a much higher one) just as it was despite herself that Abby didn't flunk out of high school. Bearing in mind that success is always relative, however, the denial of vocation invariably breeds a lack of success and personal misery. I have seen women who married into great wealth, for instance, who would be considered successful in the world's terms, whose jewels and position were the envy of multitudes, but who lived in despair because they were never called to marriage in the first place.
Since they are so accustomed to seeing people trapped in roles having nothing to do with their vocations, I do not know any psychotherapist-male of female-who has not been basically a supporter of the women's liberation movement. We have all seen women who married not because marriage was their vocation, but merely because it was what they felt was expected of them, and who had children not because they liked motherhood, but because they felt they had no other option. And who then, in their old age, berated themselves for causing their children's difficulties when they did the best they could operating out of pure duty. The women's movement is indeed one of liberation: it has freed women to not have children, to not get married; to be actresses, businesswomen, and construction workers when that has been their calling. It has also liberated men to follow their vocations, to-when appropriate-be homemakers and nurturing fathers without having to bring home the bacon.
Yet we still suffer from a lack of understanding of the individuality of vocation and from our tendency to stereotype. The one downside of the women's movement is that it has led a few women to feel uneasy with their calling to heterosexuality, marriage, and motherhood and some men to feel guilty over a lack of vocation to housecleaning and child raising. This is stated not to denigrate the movement in the least, but simply to warn that stereotypical liberation becomes its own variety of imprisonment.
So God's unique vocation for each of us invariably calls us to personal success, but not necessarily success in the world's stereotypical terms or means of measurement. Nonetheless, upon occasion, God does call us to positions the world also calls great. One of my relatives, distant family legend goes, had a clear calling to be a drummer boy in the Civil War-at the same time that Abraham Lincoln had what seems to me to have been a true vocation to both the presidency and to greatness. So I think there is a distinction to be made between 'humble' and 'grand' vocations. As I suppose fits the needs of society, most men and women have humble vocations. I do not want to imply that such humble vocations are less in God's eye than grander ones. Among us Christians, we sometimes speak of 'noisy Christs' and 'quiet Christs,' and we generally consider the role of the quiet Christ to be the nobler one. Indeed, the humble vocation, such as that of a blacksmith, may be crucial. As the old saying goes: 'For want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe, the horse was lost; for want of a horse, the general was lost; for want of a general, the victory was lost; for want of a victory, the nation was lost.'
But there is a special problem that afflicts the minority who have grand vocations: a 'personal sense of destiny.' To my knowledge this problem-or condition- has never been adequately addressed in scientific literature or, for that matter, in any literature at all. Being deeply familiar with it both personally and professionally, I address it here because its mention may serve to relieve a certain amount of unnecessary suffering for some readers.
By sense of destiny, I mean the deep, but often inchoate, sense that perhaps five to ten percent of the population have, usually beginning in childhood or adolescence, that they are supposed to do great and glorious things in their lifetime. Perhaps a quarter of the time this sense is profoundly unrealistic. Indeed, it seems to be a particular characteristic of a variety of schizophrenia. Psychiatrists refer to it as 'grandiosity.' Such people feel as if they are-or at least should be- great and powerful when, in reality, they are utterly lacking the personal, spiritual, or intellectual assets that make for greatness. Perhaps because they are unable to bear the disparity between the reality and the feeling, they bridge the gap by plummeting into a realm of pure fantasy where they believe they have already achieved greatness. So they may sit, without any discernible talent at all, in the back ward of a psychiatric hospital, firmly believing that they are in that position precisely because they already are the 'messiah.' After all, what does the world do to messiahs but deny them by labeling them mentally ill and crucifying them with the meanest of treatment?
The other side of the coin, however, is that I have never known a genuinely talented person who achieved 'greatness' without a sense of destiny-who did not, years before such achievement, experience an almost burning sense that she or he was called to grand and glorious achievements. An example of this phenomenon was Sigmund Freud. At the age of twenty-eight, a whole decade before the publication of the work that began to make him famous, he wrote to his fiancee:
I have just carried out one resolution which one group of people, as yet unborn and fated to misfortune, will feel acutely. Since you can't guess whom I mean, I will tell you: they are my biographers. I have destroyed all my diaries of the past fourteen years, with letters, scientific notes and the manuscripts of my publications.... Let the biographers chafe; we won't make it too easy for them. Let each one of them believe he is right in his 'Conception of the Development of the Hero': even now I enjoy the thought of how they will all go astray.
Freud was not always so confident. He frequently worried during this same period that his ambition was not paying off. For him and for most who have genuine grand vocations, their sense of destiny may be a very significant burden. Experiencing inklings they are destined to do `something particularly important' in the world, they may begin to doubt their sanity. As a psychiatrist, I have had to assure some such men and women that they were quite sane. Despite this reassurance they often began to wonder if they were not doing something seriously wrong. Their feeling was not that they would for certain do great things, but that they ought to be doing great things. They feel guilty. If God was indeed calling them to greatness, it certainly seemed they were letting God down. Some of these patients never have made seemingly great achievements, as far as I know. But others have, and their greatest joy was then not their fame, but their relief. Their destinies had finally, finally begun to catch up with them.
I do not know you. If you have a sense of destiny, I cannot certify that sense, sight unseen, to be perfectly sane. And even if I met you, it is unlikely I could prophesy-no matter how sane you are-that you will, in fact, do the great things you feel you ought to be doing. I cannot relieve you of the burden. But I can tell you two things. One is that your sense of destiny is not necessarily a sign of mental instability; indeed, if you are past the age of twenty-five and not doing too badly, it is extremely unlikely. The other is that your sense of destiny may be a perfectly valid sign that you do have a grand vocation-that you are called to do great things, although that calling will likely be worked out in ways that you currently can't even begin to imagine.
Extracted from M Scott Peck's A World Waiting to be Born.
No comments:
Post a Comment