What does ‘making it’ mean in terms of my vocation? The Pulitzer Prize? The Nobel Peace Prize? Is there any kind of prize that will make me feel like I did it? Like I changed some part of the world and then wrote about it?
Imagine if there was. Imagine I could get to a point where I could say, ok, I have reached my full potential here in this area of social change and the arts. I’ve taught my quota of students, reached X number of hearts, made a difference in the lives of X number of people.
What then?
Oh my goodness, no. Please don’t let me make it there. Don’t let me make it to a point where I sit around and ask myself, now what? Please let there always be another opportunity to serve, another story to write, another idea to develop, another creative person to collaborate with on something I never dreamed up for myself. Please don’t let me make it to the top where I would sit idle, wasting precious time and precious life.
This is not something I can retire from. Every stage in my life will, God willing, give me more to say, more to reflect on, more to dream about. And I hope give me more to offer others.
I never want to ‘make it’ in my vocation. I just want to live it each day, live as authentically and creatively as I can. With as much courage and conviction as I can muster, and more.
I hope I have decades and decades and decades to do this work. And I know that at the end of that there will still be more to be done. Thankfully, there is enough Inspiration to go around and the work will continue. Stories will still be told. Bridges will still be built. And ideas will never stop presenting themselves to us.
