2132: Calling

How do you find your “calling”? In other words, how do you figure out what it is you’re “supposed” to be doing; the thing you’re good at?

I’m still not convinced I’ve figured it out myself, but I’ve been pondering it somewhat recently.

At one point, I thought teaching might be my calling, but the reality of the situation set in quite soon after I started my training; in retrospect, I’m pleased with myself that I managed to survive as long as I did, but annoyed that I wasted several years of my life and possibly left myself with some irreparable mental scars in the process.

At another point, I thought games journalism might be my calling, but going by the state of the modern games press and its contemptuous attitude towards both its audience and the things it covers, it’s pretty apparent that I’m not particularly welcome in that field, despite it being one of my biggest ambitions when I was a bit younger.

Most recently, I’ve been working retail for the second time in my life, and I’ve been surprised how much I’ve been enjoying it. This week we’ve been setting up a brand new store, and I’m absolutely exhausted as a result of the long hours everyone on the team has been working, but it’s extremely satisfying. And when I was in the existing store serving customers, it’s been extremely satisfying to help people out, advise them or simply hand them a hotly anticipated product ready for them to go home and enjoy.

I shouldn’t be that surprised, of course; the last time I worked retail, I enjoyed it a lot, too, though I attributed this to the corporate culture of the company I was working for at the time. My positive feelings towards said company — or, rather, the management team of the store I worked at — dissipated after both a colleague and I were treated rather badly, but I still look back on the majority of my time at that store with fondness.

The fact that I’m enjoying it just as much in a company with a somewhat more laid-back attitude — for the most part, anyway — suggests that it might be the work itself that I’m finding fulfilling. And indeed there are plenty of individual elements that I find oddly satisfying: things as simple as sorting out shelves and alphabetising discs, or as complex as talking an inexperienced customer through the various product lines available. It all adds up to something that I rather enjoy on the whole, with the only really sucky part of the whole thing being that retail, on average, wherever you go, tends to pay pretty poorly, creating a business sector where many employees are overworked, underpaid and underappreciated.

Still, at this stage, having suffered through a number of jobs that clearly weren’t right for me, I’m more than willing to suck up a considerable cut in my overall pay in exchange for something that I seem to enjoy and be reasonably good at. Long may these feelings continue.