What is your calling?

[Gayandgray]

I have always been a caregiver and used to feel that it was my calling. But then when my spouse got sick and had to retire, I got a second job to help cover finances at an animal boarding kennel and LOVED, LOVED, LOVED it!!!!!!!!! I felt that I had FINALLY found my TRUE calling! I worked there a few years and was offered a fulltime job, but I could not afford such a huge pay cut plus they offered no benefits. I hated to quit but the state started paying me to take care of my spouse, who really needed me home more as her health started declining, so I resigned. I keep in touch with my old boss and she and I joke that if we hit the lottery I will quit my job in healthcare and work fulltime at the big kennel she will buy! LOL! Especially as I'm getting older, I feel I relate better to animals than people. And if I didn't have such bad hands I would probably be a dog groomer.

[Chad]

I seem to be a jack of all trades.

My first career was very mechanical and I am good at seeing machinery in motion in my mind.

The environment is my second career and my gift of motion works well with aquatic systems.

My passion is animals. I have always had a gift when it comes to animals wild and domestic.

My life is working out well now. I restore and protect the environment. I am my own best ranchhand because I can maintain all the equipment. I can also tackle plumbing and electrical issues. I can interact with wildlife and domestic animals on my land and in my work.

Now if I could just figure out humans !

[Bubala]

I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up! lol

All jokes aside, I guess after surviving 3 wars on two continents (twice as a civilian child and once as a military officer myself) I guess my calling is to close related to - on one hand ever so nerdy academic study of conflict (high and low conflict, conflict prevention and post-conflict resolution) and on the other hand, simple human ability to bare a witness and tell the story for whatever that means.

It's funny...All I seek in life is peace, but time after time I am still somehow drawn to conflict. The more we know, the less we can do....

[imperfect_cupcake]

I've had a few passions that put me in "the zone" in life:

Photography- my dad taught me and I learned how to work in a dark room since I was 10 (I developed pictures for my dad at his work) -I took it up when I was 13 and loved it until my late 20s when someone stole my 35 mm Nikon, my Ziess Icon 2 1/4 studio camera, and all the lenses and filters. I couldn't replace any of it. I just didn't have the money. So I never got back into it.

Cooking - mom taught me very early and when she got sick I had to start cooking for the family whenever she went into the hospital, when I was 11. But I loved it. I had a professional cooking job in two different restaurants and I loved it. I got so much freedom to invent dishes. But I got fed up with the shit wages and went back to higher paid factory work.

Primatology- I loved this. So much. I wound up going from a 2 month stay in Central America to a 5 month stay because I just wanted to stay on and keep researching. I got offered three different jobs. I was good at it. I picked the wrong job. That's life.

Complaints and Governance officer for mental health - I loved this. I shone like a halogen bulb in this. I got to problem solve, investigate, tell assholes to apologise, mediate, help people, and try to improve national health services. <3

Massage therapy - cause I love reading people's bodies, fixing shit, solving problems, making people feel better, understanding physiology, researching pathology, the comradeship with my fellow therapists and classmates. I love touching stuff and understanding what that means - when I feel it. I love being able to touch a muscle and understand from feel what's going on. I love feeling the body let go cause I did a little trick to fool it's reflexes into releasing. It's like Darren Brown magic tricks on the body. I love understanding what the body is doing by touching it. When I massage I am never, ever anywhere else. I am fully 100% always there, mindful, fully engaged, and always happy/astounded with bodies. I swear, laugh, make jokes, tease people, and make people work with me. I love making people laugh through pain on the table. I adore my patients. <3

[RockOn]

helping the abused, pushed aside, forgotten ones .... pit bull and pit bull mix breeds .... or really any dog suffering hardship

[candy_coated_bitch]

My calling is definitely to be an artist. What the looks like on a given day varies, but I always eventually return to the art.

[grenade]

I'm a nuturer. I work with adults with intellectual delays. I make them happy. They make me happy. Win/win. Except it drains me. I get too emotionally involved. I would prefer to have an occupation that would use more of my creativity and artistic ability. I have to pay bills though.

[Blade]

I don't know, it hasn't called me yet. I think I will be one of those people who finds my calling later in life, or after becoming a retiree.

[Soft*Silver]

Five years ago I posted I was running a plus size women's clothing store. Wow. That seems so long ago. I have opened it, ran it, got run down running it, closed it and went back to being a mental health therapist for children. I love this job but I am feeling unsettled, like there is something else I am suppose to be doing. Perhaps in 2017 I will figure out what that is suppose to be...

[homoe]

I wished I had been a teacher! I'm not sure if I got the calling or not ..perhaps I just didn't hear it............

[cinnamongrrl]

Originally Posted by homoe

I wished I had been a teacher! I'm not sure if I got the calling or not ..perhaps I just didn't hear it............

It's never too late!!