Follow Your Talents, Not Your Passions

Too Long Didn’t Read

Everyone says chase your passions and do what you are passionate about, but in the same way of asking how to find a vocation, as the two are directly linked, they never say how to do it. Everyone is aware of the relationship between joy in the workplace and passion but no one knows how to make the two meet.

I think it is in your talents. I think you should chase what you are good at, not what you love doing, really enjoy, or makes you feel good inside. Yes, there can be overlap, but work itself is not always going to be what brings you deep joy.

But why?

You were given talents to share and if you don’t chase those and share those, you are doing a disservice to the source of those talents, to yourself and everyone around you. Be it God, the universe, or chance, you have been given a set of skills and talents that, if developed, will illuminate the true inner beauty of who you are to all those around you. By taking the time to invest in your talents, you are investing in the very essence of you.

A job is what you do, but your talents are who you are.

This is what is going to bring you joy: growing, completely, into the person you are meant to be, the person you are. To deny this growth makes no sense. Pursuing a passion, or what you think is fun, over your actual talents is not how to live. It places a temporary, fleeting feeling as the driving force for all your decisions.

To embrace your talents and let them guide you, there is a level of letting go you have to embrace. You must assume you do not know everything, and you never will. This is okay. What you do know, and can know, is what you are good at. Moreover, you have to be okay waiting for these skills to develop and grow. To rush this process is to take your souffle out of the oven too soon: you fall flat into a heap of beautifully crafted mess. The souffle is not useless, but it is nowhere close to what it could be.?

If you do not know what your skills are, ask someone you trust: I had many of teachers tell me I was good at something and though I didn’t base my existence on their words, I did listen and internalize.

Inky Johnson says it best. We are all so focused on the outcomes of what we do, we lose sight of the fact that ultimately we should be sharing who we are, our talents, with others in order to make the world better for those around us. Instead, we focus on what we are going to gain and what we get.

We are all caught up in the question of what am I going to be, that we do not stop to ask who am I.

Were driven by rewards and outcomes instead of the person we become as we explore our talents and skills. We limit ourselves to the most basic of status symbols instead of investing in what really matters our personal growth, character, and skills. Say you do not get the job you wanted or receive the promotion you think you deserve: you are still you. You still have the skills that can be used in the role you are in or even elsewhere. Who you become is drastically more important than what you acquire.

Finding your vocation, living out your passions, they do not have to be such an all or nothing gamble. There will be work involved, and you will have to be patient, but its easy: follow what you are good at.

A More Personal Take

The Friday before I published my post on the difference between jobs and vocations, as I mulled over my last thoughts and edits, I walked to my car after supervising my lacrosse team’s lift.

Fridays are always weird days for me.

Typically, instead of training at my CrossFit gym, I use the school gym: it is the start of the weekend, students are heading home and going out (whatever that means to a group of 16 year old’s), teachers are with their families, and I am at school alone. It’s a sobering feeling. It’s a lonely feeling. It’s an overwhelming feeling.

As this feeling sank in once more, I could not understand how having all but emphatically concluded that your life takes on meaning once you find a vocation, I felt void of all drive and desire.

Every single Friday I struggle to balance my love and dedication for the work I do with the feeling that, when I am not working, I am seemingly lost. It is almost when I step out of the role I take on in my job, I am unsure what role I now take in my life: unlike my students and coworkers, there is no family I return home to or similar role to fill. In these moments it seems my identity is my job, and my job is my identity.

Based on what I said in the article about jobs and vocations, it would seem I do think your identity should be near tied to the work you do. I seemed to fantasize that as you find your vocation, your life will mold itself to the work you do. Moreover, in this transition from a job to a vocation, you will find eternal peace.

I am not sure it is that easy.

The weekend rolled on and, as I began to stir on posting the article or not, I had already begun to ponder this seeming larger question of our identity and our work. I almost did not post the article as I did not know if it was right to post my thoughts on vocations and jobs knowing I had not answered my own lingering questions that came forth afterwards.

As I sit here on Monday October 24, 2022 at 6:16 pm. I have been struck once again by the Big Magic Elizabeth Gilbert talks about in the book of the same title. The idea, or magic, that one must capture when it comes: to forgo the chance to put to pen the deep convictions of the mind is risky as you may never come so close to the ideas again.

See, as I got into my car that Friday, I had wrote down in my notes the title of the next post “Are You Lonely or Are You Looking for Purpose?” This was the question I asked myself as I drove home on Friday after work.

I think that the purpose question is very closely related to the vocation question. I know I was called to move to Houston and work at Jesuit, but I have not known why. Though I have nearly every earthly trapping I could need, I have stewed on Friday nights feeling aimless as the weekend does not spell freedom from a dead end 9-5, but an absence of the joy of teaching, mentoring, and coaching. But at 26, I cannot help but question if it is normal to not have much a life beyond my vocation.

I think many people let their job define their purpose instead of letting their purpose define their job.

Myself included, I think we all naturally feel that who we are is so closely related to what we do. I am a teacher: the qualities that one needs to successfully teach do not leave me when I exit the classroom. I approach the world with a teacher like curiosity, so, in essence, at school or not, I am always Mr. Brown.?Yet, that is not who I am. It is what I do. It is an extension of me. It is an expression of my talents and skills. It is a space in which I use the gifts instilled in me and share them with others.

A job is what you do, but your talents are who you are.

Our jobs should not be who we are. We should be able to separate who we are from what we do. I think that jobs feel suffocating to some when they feel they are ready for a career change, but having worked so deeply in one space, the idea of trying a new field seems impossible. They focus on what the job has required them to do for so long, they lose sight of the unique skill set they possess that, yes, works at this job, but could also allow them to thrive elsewhere.

It is liberating to realize you are not tied to a job because it is all you have done. You no longer feel forced to work, suppressing possible discontent, unable to enjoy what you are doing as you feel a lack of autonomy in your decision making. I would wager research somewhere would support the claim that despite wanting to leave their job, people who worked in a job and wanted to leave and felt like they could leave are exponentially happier than people who work a job and want to leave but feel like they cannot leave.

I think this breath of fresh air only comes when you realize you have talents that are, yes, being used in this specific space, but can be taken with you anywhere you go and applied elsewhere.

For this reason, you should not find purpose in your job. Many jobs are menial tasks that anyone without talents can do. Post industrial revolution, many jobs, and I use this as defined in my last post, are quite simple. Do this task over and over and over. I do not think anyone will find much meaning or purpose in that.

However, if you instead look at what you are good at, what talents you or others have noted about yourself, I believe you will lead yourself to your vocation. Your purpose is what defines what you do not the other way around.

See, I never wanted to be a teacher, yet here I am now thriving in the vocation. How did I end up here? Well, I had a skill of writing essays that was noted in 8th grade and refined in high school. I decided to major in Rhetoric in College as I knew it was a skill I had and could refine. Yes, I was pre-med, somewhere between wanting to make a lot of money and a sort of Grey’s Anatomy fantasy. However, my real talent was writing, communicating, thinking, pondering, and sharing ideas. So, I chased that skill: I worked as an orientation small group leader, an orientation committee member, an intern for university communications, an insurance intern, a referee, an intermural sports supervisor, a university recreation and wellness program assistant, a student aid to a university president, I hosted a TEDx event, and, finally, I became a teacher.

If you ask most, English majors simply read books and write papers, yet my skills transferred beyond the narrow space most assume. With these skills in mind, in tandem with the desire to help others, it is abundantly clear why I am a teacher. However, in full college angst, whenever anyone asked if I would teach, I said NO. How dare you box me in. I am my own person who will do what I want when I want and defy your stereotypes about my major.

See this is where I think many people go wrong.

Instead of letting go and really sinking into the very real reality that we do not know much, never will know much, and everyone around us does not know much, we fight to show we know so much and control every aspect of everything.

The issue is that when we do this, we limit ourselves.

5-year-old Jason should not tell 26-year-old Jason what he should do for the rest of his life. In the same way, who you are now will influence who you are later, but to say you know exactly where you will be and what you will be doing in 1, 2, 3, 6, or 10 years is near impossible.

Everyone says chase your passions, do what you are passionate about, but in the same way of asking how to find a vocation, as the two are directly linked, they never say how to do it. Everyone is aware of the relationship between joy in the workplace and passion but no one knows how to make the two meet.

I think it is in your talents. I think you should chase what you are good at, not what you love doing, really enjoy, or makes you feel good inside. Yes, there can be overlap, but work itself is not always going to be what brings you deep joy.

By taking the time to invest in your talents, you are investing in the very essence of you: the person you are.

You were given talents to share and if you don’t chase those and share those, you are doing a disservice to the source of those talents, to yourself and everyone around you.

Be it God, the universe, or chance, you have been given a set of skills and talents that, if developed, will illuminate the true inner beauty of who you are to all those around you. This is what is going to bring you joy: growing, completely, into the person you are meant to be. To deny this growth makes no sense. Pursuing a passion, or what you think is fun, over your actual talents is not how to live. It places a temporary, fleeting feeling as the driving force for all your decisions. Even the nonreligious would agree this is bad: Ryan Holiday and the rising stoics of the 21st century continually preach this.

You do not know what you are passionate about in the same way most do not know what they want to do when they go to college. So let your talents guide you. You were given them for a reason.

Case and Point.

After 8 years, countless injuries, Airrosti appointments, yoga sessions, self-physical therapy, and Youtube searches to know if I need to go to the doctor or not, I just completed my first CrossFit competition today, October 24, 2022.

See I am passionate about CrossFit. Ask my coworkers, family, and friends: my life is centered around my diet, sleep, and training. I love doing it. I find it fun. I strive to compete. If I followed conventional wisdom, I would quit my job, actually I probably would have never taken my job. Instead, I would workout for a living because I am passionate about it. However, countless times I think about the reality of putting my livelihood on something that can be taken away so easily. One injury and boom, nothing: finding your passion and living it does not need to be something so all or nothing. Throwing everything you have into one thing and hoping it works out always sounds good in the celebrity memoir or newest movie, and maybe this is why I am not famous, but the practicality seems lacking. For some it works out, but for most it does not. And when it does not work out, when you have nothing left, and you need some money to meet your basic needs, you end up working a job you do not want: just like I explained in my last post.

Finding your vocation and feeling a sense of purpose does not need to be so fatal.

My vocation is teaching. Why is that? Well because I like helping people, I like to think deeply, I like to write, and I am good at those three things. These are talents and skills that I have grown into which have allowed me to find a vocation I love. I never wanted to teach. NEVER. Yet, here I am because my skills and talents lend well to the job, just as they would lend well elsewhere. If I would have chased my passion as a 19-year-old I would have never allowed myself to find this wonderful space I now exist in. If I had listened to my strong opinions on a future I had little awareness of, I would have let my talents fall flat and would not be able to be the teacher, coach, and mentor to young men daily: I would be working out. Listen to that. If I had chased my passions, I would be working out instead of making meaningful relationships that will affect the world.

Almost to comedic effect, as I make these edits, I chuckle because I still am working out and training while I get to change the world. That is amazing. In true Hannah Montana Fashion: the best of both worlds.

This comes through humility and deep patience. ?

As I come to a close, in order to embrace your talents and let them guide you, there is a level of letting go you have to embrace. You must assume you do not know everything and you never will. This is okay. What you do know, and can know, is what you are good at. Moreover, you have to be okay waiting for these skills to develop and grow. To rush this process is to take your souffle out of the oven too soon: you fall flat into a heap of beautifully crafted mess. The souffle is not useless, but it is nowhere close to what it could be.?

If you do not know what your skills are, ask someone you trust: I had many of teachers tell me I was good at something and though I didn’t base my existence on their words, I did listen and internalize.

It does not need to be make it or spend the rest of your life wallowing in pity at the failure that comes with chasing your inevitably shallow dreams. You can find what you are passionate about AND live out your passions. You can teach the youths while training for CrossFit. There are many decisions you must make on how to make it work, but it can be done.

Inky Johnson says it best. We are all so focused on the outcomes of what we do, we lose sight of the fact that ultimately we should be sharing who we are, our talents, with others in order to make the world better for those around us. Instead, we focus on what we are going to gain and what we get.

We are all caught up in the question of what am I going to be, that we do not stop to ask who am I.

Were driven by rewards and outcomes instead of the person we become as we explore our talents and skills. We limit ourselves to the most basic of status symbols instead of investing in what really matters our personal growth, character, and skills. Say you do not get the job you wanted or receive the promotion you think you deserve: you are still you. You still have the skills that can be used in the role you are in or even elsewhere. Who you become is drastically more important than what you acquire.

See I am not lonely on Friday nights. It is in those moments that I forget to look into the wall of mirrors that line the gym walls and think about the journey I have taken to be standing in the gym on a Friday night. I forget to think less about what I could be doing or what other people are doing on a Friday night and think more about what I am doing with my life and myself.

Finding a purpose is easy. Finding your vocation is easy. It will require a lot of work, but its easy. Just do what you are good at.