Naming Our Life's Calling

A few years ago, on a business trip to Boston, a cabbie reminded me of how naming our life’s calling can make all the difference.

“So, whattayou in town for?” he asked me as we pulled away frorm the airport.

“I‘m giving a presentation to some business people,” I said, hoping to make it sound uninteresting so the driver would leave me alone.

He didn’t take the hint. “Oh yeah? What’s it about?”

I wasn’t interested in giving the speech twice, so I offered the Reader’s Digest abridged version. “Hearing and heeding your life’s calling. Doing the work you were born to do.”

My cabbie scoffed. “Your life’s ‘calling?’ C’mon, I drive a cab here. What’s that got to do with a calling?”

I closed my folder and caught the driver’s eyes in the rearview. “You weren’t born to drive a taxi?”

He just laughed.

“But you like your work well enough?”

He shrugged. “I guess it has its moments.”

“I’m interested. What are those moments?”

“You mean besides quitten’ time?”

I leaned forward and put my hand on the front seat. “I’m serious. I s there any time you feel like you’re really bringing all of yourself to what you do?”

He smirked like he was going to say something sarcastic but then stopped. Graduallyl, his face softened. He laughed a little and said, “Well, there’s this old lady.”

I stayed silent and he continued.

“A couple times a week, I get a call to pick her up and take her to the grocery store. She just buys a few items. I help her carry them into her apartment; maybe unload them for her in her kitchen, sometimes she asks me to stay for a cup of coffee. It’s no big deal, really; I’m not even sure she knows my name. But I’m her guy. Whenever she calls for a taxi, I’m the guy that goes. And I dunno, just makes me feel good. I like to help out.”

“There’s your calling right there,” I said.

“What?” The smirk returned. “Unloading groceries?”

“You said you like to help out. That’s a pretty clear expression of calling.”

A smile spread across his face. “Well, I’ll be damned. I guess that’s right. Most of the time, I’m just a driver, but when I get that chance to help somebody—as long as they’re not some kinda jerk or something—that’s when I feel good about this job. So, whattayou know? I got a calling.”

He fell silent for the rest of the trip. But I could see his face in the rear-view mirror and even when we hit the midtown traffic, he was still smiling.

That smile stays with me today reminds me of an essential truth: the more of ourselves we bring to what we do ad the more clearly we articulate that—by naming our life’s calling in simple, straightforward terms—the more likely we are to find satisfaction and fulfillment in all that we do.

Richard Leider and David Shapiro