Passion, Vocation and Welfare

Passion: when you love doing what you do well

Career: what you do well what the world pays for

Vocation: when you love doing what the world needs

Welfare: when the world pays for what the world needs

I find myself often sitting at home with a cup of coffee next to me, enjoying to scribble down a few spiritual insights and share them with you on my blog or in the Spiritual Networks community. I would call spiritual writing a vocation of sorts given that I enjoy sharing insights that the world is in need of. However, given that there is no money involved, other people would probably call it a hobby instead.

In my "bread-and-butter career", I am a strategist in the financial industry helping to manage other people's retirement money. Sure, the world has a need for it, but I also have mixed emotions about it. On the positive side, it is an activity I do rather well - pattern recognition, historic analysis, analyzing trends, and connecting with other brilliant minds; from time to time I can even share my spiritual wisdom with others there. Yet there are also fears, self-doubts and dislike of the entire business. My ego craves it though - at work I am somebody; on occasions I am admired for my skills, and certainly handsomely paid.

Some of my spiritual friends tell me to simply have it all: to make a career out of my spiritual writings and see to it that I enjoy doing what I am good at, while creating what the world needs and pays for. To that I would say, maybe, maybe not. Eventually yes, but perhaps I still need a little homework to finish before I graduate to that level. Sometimes I sit on the couch ready to write and I feel empty and lonely instead. You may say, just go out and connect with other souls the way Eckart Tolle does, and to that I would respond that so many people project their spiritual longings on to him. I don't want his job! It sounds like a hard one to me.

In my first book, "The Magnificent Experiment" , I describe many spiritual insights I developed while being at work. I have another couple of books in store that will be published in coming years: "The Way of the Meister", a book that describes the art of functioning as a spiritual traveler in the real world, and "Thus, Spoke Lord Krishna", another project that describes the awakening of a spiritual traveler who is caught on a battlefield in a war he doesn't want to fight, just as it once happened to Arjun in the Bhagavad Gita before. With so much spiritual creativity and inspiration, who can therefore say that I am not on a blessed and predestined path? 

This year I was approached at work to shoot a video and be part of a fancy interview for our clients. Normally I am not a fan of those marketing efforts but as I was preparing for it, I pictured how it prepares me perfectly for my upcoming future radio or television interviews, or shooting spiritual videos myself. In the same fashion, you can always find a way to use your existing work as a stepping stone for your next, more spiritually meaningful endeavor.  I hope that you are also close to the point in your stage of life when passion, vocation and welfare finally meet!