JONTILLMAN.COM | part of the problem since 1976

There is no end to “self-help” and “motivational” literature purporting to help you discover your “true calling” in life; that thing or industry or job that you will be gloriously happy doing and will finally make all of your labors worthwhile. It’s all bunk.

The concept of “a calling” is part and parcel of the Protestant Work Ethic that I am opposed to, that I think it is high time we move beyond. The “calling” idea is a relatively new idea, originating with the writing of Luther, Calvin, Baxter and others of the sixteenth and seventeenth century.

The idea of the calling is that, in line with the Puritan idea that work and labor are atonement for original sin, God has preordained a certain type or method of work (atonement) to every human, and that through preordination, the behavior of a worker on Earth would signal their place in the afterlife; those who worked, especially in their “lifes calling” would ascend to heaven, while those who sought to avoid work would descend into hell.

So the Protestant reformation gave rise to the idea of a “work ethic” as a religious atonement, and the Calvinists advanced their theory of labor a little farther, providing the concept of a “calling” as a means of godly preordination for whatever work they, being the social and business leaders, forced you into. Nicely done, and the prime reason that I chuckle now when I hear someone saying something along the lines of “once you find your calling, you’ll never work again”.