A CALLING TO ME FROM MY VOCATION

Thinking a lot about vocation these days, or I should say again.  What my heart yearns for as opposed to what I do for a living is worlds apart.  I woke up this morning and the first words that came to mind were: the secret to life is not to live others'.  I'm not sure who said that or if it's a quote, but it is true.  To follow what others do or tell you you should do, or play it safe, is a living death.  Later, cleaning out my purse, I came across the following in my wallet.  I had placed it there a year or more ago.  Obviously it felt my pain, it bounced out of my wallet as if to say, "I need you to read me again"...

Vocation by William Stafford

This dream the world is having about itself

includes a trace on the plains of the Oregon trail,

a groove in the grass my father showed us all

one day while meadowlarks were trying to tell

something better about to happen.

I dreamed the trace to the mountains, over the hills,

and there a girl who belonged wherever she was.

But then my mother called us back to the car:

she was afraid; she always blamed the place,

the time, anything my father planned.

Now both of my parents, the long line through the plain,

the meadowlarks, the sky, the world's whole dream

remain, and I hear him say while I stand between the two,

helpless, both of them part of me:

"Your job is to find what the world is trying to be."