"A curtain!" he replied with three-year-old enthusiasm. I feel this is a good metaphor for a lot of people's lives, at least those who still can't say they've got life all figured out. We may have images of things we like, things we'd love to associate ourselves with, but that search for something to do, something to be, remains as difficult as trying to become a curtain.
Along with the Internet, I'll bet this part of history will become famous for the quarter-life crisis. People used to dive into a job and family and then wonder if they'd missed something along the way. Now we survey the Grand Canyon of choices available after college and nearly pee our pants. Should we listen to Kerouac, Frost, or our parents as we reach sweaty palms for the magic door to who we will become for ever and ever into the future?
My crisis probably came to a head a few years ago when all these questions and options seemed ready to tear me apart. I had double-majored in college (Solution 1: keep all the doors open as long as possible). After working a job for a couple years that I didn't like, I had applied for grad school (Solution 2: delay the choice longer), and been rejected (smack!). So I did what young Christians in the know do and applied to The Trinity Forum Academy fellowship (Solution 3: hope someone else can divine my purpose in life for me). Two mentors, 11 classmates in the same boat, and countless discussions later, I had "started asking better questions." So I did what insecure TFA graduates in the know do and joined the staff for a year (cheat a little and repeat Solution 2--ha!) while applying for grad school a third time (1+2).
But something did happen there at the Academy that changed things for me. A seed was planted. I made a list of all the things I've done that I've loved, the things that made me feel most satisfied, whether they had anything to do with making money or not. As I contemplated it and talked to friends who knew me well, several realizations occurred.
1: There is a difference between occupation and identity. Few indeed are those who find them in the same place, and not necessarily to be envied.
2: Life keeps happening while you're trying to decide what it should look like.
3: We tend to overrate the points of arrival we strive for (college acceptance, promotion, tenure, awards, retirement).
4: My career will probably change many times, regardless of what previous generations say is or should be true.
These dots weren't easy to connect, but once I started nailing things down, I came to a breakthrough conclusion: I'm supposed to be a Swiss Army Knife! (My brother the curtain would be so jealous.)
This is not the solution for every person, only for me. I loved journalism, economics came naturally to me, literature seeped through my veins, physics flirted with my imagination, everything slid down into theology, and my magnifying glass doubled as a screwdriver. It was so clear; these all had nothing to do with each other, but God was actually OK with me carrying them all around and whipping them out whenever the circumstances called for something He had built into me.
I think some people are given inhuman endurance so they can plough through decades of adversity to achieve an unbelievable goal. Others are given genius so they can invent something the world needs. I was given insatiable curiosity and not enough skill to hide my identity in any single occupation.
That frustrated me to no end, until I realized that God wanted me to put my identity in Him and accept the gift of doing what I love to do, to His pleasure.
I've always felt satisfied after writing--writing about anything and everything. But to be a good writer you have to have things to write about. It's took me the better part of 30 years to even begin to suspect that God might provide my heart's desire as the answer to the conundrum of work and identity. I had to realize that not only is work different from identity, it's different from life.
Work is the devotion we feel to do those hard things we find give God pleasure and satisfy us. It's the reason why my brother and I couldn't resist building epic sandcastles if we were at the beach, and why guys tinker on cars.
Wait, that's not work! That's fun. Hardly anybody enjoys work today, right?
I still think work is not a place we go, but a thing we do. We may hate our job, but some deeper purpose keeps us there, like getting out of debt or providing for a family. Work is hardwired into us. Many people who retire have a three-quarter-life crisis and go nuts because they're not satisfying their deep need to work.
My life could take any number of sharp turns, and it probably will. But I've begun to grasp that God has made me as a weird conglomeration of seemingly random (and small) skills and knowledge. I've begun to enjoy watching for those moments when He calls me to pull out my blade or file and get to work. I like the thrill of the unexpected turns and challenges. I like the variety that keeps everything interesting. I know I can work really hard, but all along I was looking for work to be my answer, my escape from the bigger question of identity.
Seeing this knife in the shop today made me smile deep down inside and appreciate that even I, a Swiss Army Knife can be worth something. (Almost as much as a Swiss watch!)
