The problem of calling for unhappy academics

Calling can be — okay, usually is — a fraught subject for unhappy academics. You see, so many of us thought we had already identified and started to live our calling. And then our calling betrayed us.

Or so we think

Our calling has never betrayed us. Our calling is, in its purest form, the shape our soul wants to take in the world, the work we’re meant to do, the gift we bring to the brokenness of the universe.

That doesn’t mean that in academia we necessarily found the only or even best expression of it.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — callings do not map neatly onto jobs, even when they seem like maybe they have the same shape. Callings are much bigger than any job or even any career.

And that’s a really, really good thing.

A small story

I’m going to use myself as an example here, although I’ve seen this play out with dozens of clients.

I walked through the big oak doors of academia because I loved to read, and I loved writing, and I loved the idea of teaching. (There have been worse reasons to go to graduate school, but oh lordy, there have also been much, much better ones.) I never lost my love of reading or my love of writing or my love of the idea of teaching. But I never did find my love of actually teaching.

What I did find was almost more interesting. Teaching groups is not my deal, as a general rule. It alternately bores and stresses me. One-on-one teaching, on the other hand, always made me happy. I’m also not interested in writing per se — what fascinates me is helping people learn to connect with and trust themselves.

I never would have learned those things if I hadn’t been in academia. And that insight has led to any number of jobs in which I got to work one-on-one with people to help them get out of their own damn way, whether as a supervisor, an editor, or a coach.

Same calling. Different expressions — including ones it never would have occurred to me would be expressions of my calling.

All of which is to say

If you’re struggling with academia, and especially if you’ve left, there’s going to be grief. There just is. It’s totally normal and appropriate to be sad and angry and despairing and furious and bored and dismissive and insert-your-favorite-emotion-here.

But that struggle — and that grief — don’t mean that your calling is moot. It doesn’t mean that you aren’t going to live your calling. It only means you might not live out your calling in the way you expected to.

It still sucks — but not as much.

Your passion still matters

When you can, when it doesn’t feel quite so pointy and craptastic, if you’re still feeling called to your calling, you’ve got the perfect experience to learn something important from.

What about academia did, in fact, express your calling? What activities, what experiences, what tasks, what roles? What about academia didn’t actually express your calling?

You can do this for every job you’ve ever held, whether it was paid or not. Expand it to every notable experience, good or bad. That club you were part of once, when you learned how much you love leading discussion. The mountain bike ride on which you really, really got why people become avid athletes. That night at the improv when you stood up in front of a crowd of semi-hostile people and realized that however much you like the idea of being on stage, being on stage in reality makes you want to throw up.

Everything is a clue. Everything is a breadcrumb. Everything will lead you to your calling, if you let it. Even your struggle with academia.