In Pursuit of the Ideal

I'm trying to sort out my life. Specifically, I'm trying to determine my Calling, the Vocation which combines my all passions and talents and a sense of mission, something into which I can pour all my energy, something I will love endlessly, for which I will be perfectly suited, and will enjoy vast success. Something encompassing adventure and beauty and financial gain and purpose and fabulousness; all swirled into an amalgam of success, achievement and never-ending bliss.

Is it any wonder why I haven't found that yet? I think it might not actually exist. Actually, as I describe it, it sounds more like Heaven.

I think I'm onto something here, although it's certainly not a new observation. Isn't that ultimately what all humans search for? This may be my judeo-Christian world view's influence here, but ultimately, humans are searching for the ideal. Counterintuitively, we all claim intellectual ascent to the fact that the ideal doesn't exist in this world, yet we all subconsciously and compulsively search it out. Something deeper is at play here.

It suggests a commonality in the wiring of all humans. What we define as ideal, we seek in our own lives. Perhaps that is a projection of my own experience onto the rest of human kind, but on the whole, it seems that we are all searching, dissatisfied, and discontent. I think the natural assertion to make at this point is that common drive didn't come about by happenstance, but that God put that drive in us, the drive to discover the ideal, and make the ideal our own; God knowing all the while that ultimately, we wouldn't be able to find that anywhere except in Him. But I digress...

How do all these ramblings apply to my search for a job that will pay the bills? Well, all these subconscious impulses which are admittedly a part of my psyche have kept me pretty stuck in the last several years. Nothing, I find, is ideal. Certainly there are different levels of "not ideal", but really, most everything has been falling under the heading of "not ideal". And that has kept me doing the really, especially "not ideal" for a long time, because I can't make a decision to commit to one career path because of the aforementioned "not ideal" status I've assigned to all the different routes I've pursued thus far.

Oh, the irony.

I went to check out a completely new and off-the-wall potential career last night. I was sort of inspired by the thought of walking that path, but mostly, it was just very surreal. I felt as though I was making up my life as I went. It felt like there was no plan or purpose, but mostly, I was just doing the best I could to get by; trying to entertain myself, doing the best I could with what I had until this life is all over. This sense doesn't fall in line with what I believe to be true about life and calling and calling in life, but nevertheless, it was how I felt.

But it doesn't excuse me of my responsibility to steward my life well. Now if only I could figure out how to do that...