A Career and a Choice

A Career and a Choice

And so I became a doctor although I would rather have been a journalist. But because my heart wasn't with the profession, I soon outgrew this and became a part of the charitable non-profit sector where I have spent most of my years.

WHEN I was a young student, most of the people did not have many career choices. Usually the children chose to do what their parents did before them – so lawyer’s children were encouraged to be lawyers, a teacher’s children to be teachers and so on. And if the parents were none of these and wanted something different for their children, they would push their children to become a doctor or an engineer or a civil servant. In those times these and a few others were considered to be aspirational careers which parents encouraged their children to strive for. The children’s own wishes were of little consequence. If you have seen the movie, 3 idiots, you would notice that such a tradition still exists.

And so I became a doctor although I would rather have been a journalist. But because my heart wasn’t with the profession, I soon outgrew this and became a part of the charitable non-profit sector where I have spent most of my years. And while working in an NGO, I have seen an amazing variety of people who were trained to be something else but ended up with something quite different. As the head of an organization which deals with women and children who have been trafficked, I have a team which is full of people who were trained to be something but are finding themselves driven by a passion for something else.
Today the choices and options available to young people are many. So, parents are happy to leave the choice of a viable career option with their children, but youngsters often find it difficult to make a choice. They are caught between peer pressure, the materialistic values that increasingly guide the society and the inner calling and vocation whose voice often gets muffled out.

As we consider various career options and courses for study, the singular question to ask ourselves is: “Will this help me become a better servant for others?” Our choice of a job or a career in life should be about how we can best serve our family and others with the gifts and abilities God has given us. If our whole focus in choosing a job or career is only about getting rich and serving ourselves, then we are making sinful choices. There was a time when certain professions, subjects of study and vocations were considered holier than others. Those who pursued that path were considered set apart for “full time” work. But today we know that whether we serve as a pastor or serve in a coal mine as a technician or as a Air Traffic Controller at the airport, as long as through our studies and jobs, we are able to fulfill our responsibility of stewarding this created world in a God honoring way, we are doing fine.

William Sloane Coffin, a former chaplain of Yale university speaks to our own challenge of responding to God’s call, of choosing the pathway of faithful living, when he reminds us, “A career seeks to be successful, a calling to be valuable. A career tries to make money; a calling tries to make a difference.”

The fact is that, no matter what we do for a living, it’s about serving others. Whether we work at a Café Coffee Day outlet or are a CEO in a big company; whether we are a doctor or a garbage collector, we should do our job the best we can with the understanding that we are serving our generation and our people and our careers and studies are but a tool to this greater end.

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