Hi there. I am Dr. Gilbert Soo Hoo, adjunct professor at Singapore Bible College and missionary with Serving in Mission, East Asia. Today I begin a series of talks on the topic, “My Work, Career, and Vocation.” I will focus on the marketplace from a personal perspective, hence the pronoun “my” in the heading. This is a very relevant subject since most of us work. But I intend to include those of you who don’t work, whether because you are students, housewives/husbands or retired. So everyone is included. You will understand why in a moment.

Sometimes people use the terms “career” and “vocation” interchangeably. But for the purposes of my talk, I make a distinction between the two words. By career I mean the traditional understanding of a period of time, typically spanning many years, that begins with our very first full-time job to our last. So a career involves a series of jobs we have had. For example, I began my career right after university by working in a private company. Later I changed jobs when I joined another company to gain more experience. Afterwards, I made the jump from private industry to working for the government, civil service. Within the government I worked at three different agencies in succession. Then I made a really big jump to full-time ministry, first as a pastor and later as a theological educator. Now I am semi-retired, still teaching. Thus, my career so far features four major phases—the first phase was working in private industry; the second phase was in civil service; the third phase was in full-time ministry; and the current phase is in part-time ministry. I believe many of us have personal goals that help us decide the next job to pursue as we progress in our careers in some logical manner. Some of us dream of becoming the president or CEO of a company; others want to gain financial independence; and still others to simply succeed in their chosen field. So we draw up a plan, a road map that takes us from point A to point B with steps in-between. This entire sequence represents our career.

A helpful way to differentiate “career” and “vocation” is to note that “career” refers to our work including all the full-time jobs we have had, whether we follow an intentional sequence or not in the pursuit of our career objectives. Thus, “career” is specific to the marketplace. “Vocation”, on the other hand, covers all of life, everything. Vocation encompasses our career, our family and social life, our recreational time, and anything else we may engage in, for example, hobbies and volunteer service.

We confirm the importance we attach to our work or jobs by examining how we identify ourselves or how others view us. When we introduce ourselves, we may say, “I’m an engineer or a lawyer.” Similarly, others associate us with our profession, “He’s a doctor or businessman.” Even though our work occupies a significant portion of our week, yet it represents only a part of the whole. Do we factor in the rest of our lives into our identification? “I’m a happily married woman with three lovely children.” “Most weekends I volunteer to bring meals to homebound old folks.” “I’m a superfan of Kdrama.”

Usually, we don’t calculate the percentage of our time that each activity or involvement occupies in order to determine its relative importance, although we may have an estimate. Rather, we have an inner sense of the significance of each item to us. It is relative as what may be very important to one person may have less importance to another. For instance, spending time with friends is central to one person whereas, although it’s still important to another, it’s not as central.

In comparing “career” vs. “vocation,” we do not want to emphasize one to the detriment of the other. Both are important. We should give due attention to the two. But in equal measure? The answer is not so straightforward. As hinted earlier, work and career are quite prominent for many of us. Hence, these constitute a major aspect of life. However we may define what makes for a “successful” career, depending on the criteria we use to assess, it would be hard to imagine that life overall can be considered “successful” if we fail to find satisfaction with our career.

But what if our career was not as successful as we had hoped? Maybe it was not a total disaster but still somewhat disappointing. Seems subjective based on our personal perspective. Yet, can we still evaluate our life as gratifying to some degree? We might say, “It depends on the kind of disappointment. If some professional goals were achieved but not all, it’s OK, acceptable, because life isn’t perfect.” We can rationalize and say, “Well, I gave my best effort with the opportunities available. The results are not within my control. So I don’t want to lose sleep over it.”

We want to avoid obsessing over our job or career because life is much more than work. We have family and responsibilities to them. For those of us belonging to a faith community, we have responsibilities to them as well. I know of an acquaintance who managed to get his employer to grant extended leave of several months so that he could travel and explore the regions of the world he had not visited before. For him, the adventure of backpacking in foreign lands, learning the local culture and customs, sampling the food, and seeing the sights whether natural or manmade made life more enriching and exciting. He felt more alive than simply sitting in the office, cooped up inside and breathing the artificially conditioned air. He felt free. At the same time, he wanted to test his ability to hike long distances, to adapt to different environments, and to handle unexpected challenges with only his wits at his disposal. The potential risks and danger proved exhilarating. Although he did not say so, I think that in later life, say when he as grandchildren, he would be a most awe-inspiring grandpa because of the fascinating stories he would tell. And what makes it even more impactful is that all his stories of faraway places and exotic experiences would all be true.

Hence, we must conclude that, as important and essential as work and career are to us all, life embraces much more. Indeed, our career is one aspect of life, a significant portion but only a portion. True, for the proverbial workaholic, life is work and work is life. There is nothing else but work. But the very nomenclature “workaholic” signifies addiction or enslavement, not something wholesome or desirable.

Let’s extend that idea further to state that a wholesome and admirable perspective views all of life as significant and every area of life as an essential component that we cannot afford to ignore. This thought does not imply giving equal time to each and every area. Some areas require more and others less. Work, for example, is dictated by the organization’s management and culture that can surpass the 40-hour work week, standard in some companies. Lawyers famously put in many more hours, some clocking in the vicinity of 80 hours. A former coworker of mine pursued a hobby of building model trains that became a second business selling his models to collectors. The miniature trains were scaled down in size but quite realistic with moving parts. Undoubtedly, he spent a lot of hours in the evenings working on his passion, not counting the cost for materials and researching specific models to replicate.

Before I focus more on the concept of vocation that encompasses all of life, let me take a closer look at the idea of work or a job. I expand the idea to include any and all meaningful occupations, paid or unpaid, which include, for example, housewives or househusbands, full-time students, and even volunteer service. For my coworker, building model trains represents a sizable investment that became his second job. I remember his aim was to be so successful that he would eventually quit his primary job to go full-time into his side-business.

The reason for the expanded concept of work and career is twofold: (1) I don’t want anyone to feel marginalized if they don’t have a traditional paid occupation; they are as deserving of dignity and respect as anyone else, and (2) we need to think as broadly as possible so that we can examine vocation adequately.

I propose that we think of vocation as a philosophy of life, worldview, or orientation to life in the broadest sense. Vocation answers the questions: “What is my life all about? Why do I live life the way I do? What are my life goals or objectives? What lasting legacy do I wish to leave?” Another way to look at it is to ask, “How do I want people to see me or to think of me?”

Thus, vocation is intentional, even well-thought through and planned. For those of us who basically live life spontaneously, that does not bode well. “It cramps my style or that’s not me,” we say. But intentionality and planning do not necessarily imply mapping everything out in full detail. Life can and should surprise us; the unexpected happens, sometimes pleasantly and other times not. We go with the flow. Yet, we carefully watch where we’re heading.

OK. We’ve started our series on work, career, and vocation. Laid some of the groundwork. We’ll take a fuller look at vocation next time. Until then have a safe and fulfilling day.

Questions and Comments

1. Can you explain the difference between a job, a career, and a vocation?

2. Do you consider a non-paying or volunteer activity as work or a job? Why or why not?

3. Define in your own words the concept of vocation.