Colin Dunn

A job will never fulfill you. This much is clear. If you haven't figured this out yet, you will in time and have to learn on your own. All good, happens to all of us. It wrecked me. However, a vocation—could that add fuel to the tank? Maybe it won’t completely fill your soul, but it could be a net positive, not a drain you constantly have to recover from. The word vocation comes from the Latin 'vocare', which means “to call.” Hence the framing of a calling. A calling untimely boils down to doing it for others, something beyond your own self-interest.  I like to frame up job vs vocation through the lens of a vacation or a trip. I liken it to two types of trips: • One is a fancy resort. You’re waited on hand and foot. You wine and dine. Nothing’s off-limits. It’s all about you. • The other is a service or mission trip. It’s backbreaking, tiring work. You’re up early, moving the dial in small ways that matter to someone else. Afterwards? One trip leaves you full… in all the wrong ways. The other, fulfilled. One was for you. The other, for others. I’ve done both of these trips. I’ve never come home from the fancy resort a better person. A more self-absorbed person? Yep, been there. And so it is with a job vs. a vocation. I am no saint, and I need one hell of a vacation right now to be honest....but I do know that a mission trip would be better for the soul. Find your vocation! If not, the math won't math and burn out lurks.