From Jobs to Careers to a Calling

There was a time when I thought I’d be a painter. I went to art school, spent hours in the studio, and structured my life around making art. But I also had to pay rent. So I worked jobs—waiting tables, tending bar, data entry at eGreetings. Some jobs were tolerable, some even fun in moments, but all of them drained me. Even the ones that didn’t require deep thinking still stole something: emotional labor, time, energy. After a dinner shift, I had nothing left. If I worked evenings, I could paint in the morning, but it was always a trade-off.

A career is different. A career moves forward. It has progression, levels, status markers. At some point, I stepped off the job treadmill and into a career—first as an information architect, then a product manager, then upper management. A career asks more of you, but it gives more, too. Identity starts to wrap itself around the work. Designers are especially prone to this; they don’t just do design, they are designers. But what happens when they move up the ladder? When they stop designing and start managing? That’s when the identity crisis hits—when they realize they’ve spent so long being one thing that they don’t know who they are without it.

A calling is something else entirely.

Many people think they know their calling when they’re young. In kindergarten, the girls wanted to be nurses, the boys wanted to be firemen, but I wanted to be a painter. But at that age, a “calling” is often just something that got us praise or impressed our friends. Some people stick with it, and for them, it becomes a calling. But most of us stumble around, take jobs, get bored, switch careers. Some never find a calling at all, and that’s okay.

I feel lucky that I did.

When I started teaching, it wasn’t a grand revelation. It was just something I tried. But over time, I realized I wasn’t just teaching—I was getting better at it. I was going deeper. I was thinking about it when I wasn’t in the classroom. And now, eight years into teaching at Stanford, I’ve been a teacher longer than I’ve ever stayed at any other job. That tells me something.

So what makes a calling?

It lasts. You keep coming back to it, year after year.
It brings meaning and joy. Both are required. One without the other isn’t enough.
It deepens the more you do it. A job you tolerate. A career you master. A calling reveals new layers as you go.
That doesn’t mean you never get tired of it. Every job, career, and calling has drudgery—paperwork, admin, things you don’t want to do. But a calling makes it hard to quit. If you dream of retirement so you can finally watch TV, knit, and travel, you probably don’t have a calling. If you dream of working less but still staying engaged in your field, you just might.

But you don’t have to rush to “find” your calling. It’s not a scavenger hunt. It’s more like a wild animal. You have to sit still, let it get used to you. Let yourself feel the tug of meaning, and then, slowly, commit. And if your calling shifts over time? That’s not failure. That’s growth.

And if you never find a calling? That’s fine, too. A career can be deeply fulfilling. Even a job can be. I sometimes feel a little envious of the retired folks working the wine bars in Napa—getting their little infusion of social interaction, staying engaged. It’s not that one is better than the other, just that they’re different. Knowing which one you’re working toward helps you plan. It helps you optimize for joy.

And in the end, isn’t that the point?

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