Vocation and Work
Sadly for most of us, the relationship between who we are and what we do isn't clear. Mary's situation is instructive: In addition to the several deaths in her family, she also was coping with a major change in her job. This was traumatic because over the years she had come to see her core identity as virtually inseparable from her role as a classroom teacher and coach. Due to cutbacks in enrollment, she was asked to teach a subject she had not taught in many years, and to cut back on her coaching as well. Although she understood the situation, it frustrated her and caused major disorientation in her sense of self-worth. Like many in our society, Mary had entered a major vocational crisis.
In our contemporary world we have come to answer the question Who am I? with what I do for a living. The result is a tragic split between sacred and secular, between being and doing. Degrees, credentials, position and status have become the measure of our worth as people. Consequently, the old hierarchy of values: God, Family, Work, has been turned around and can now be represented by the following slogan: "We worship our work, we work at leisure and we play at worship." Because these core relationships are unbalanced, so too our lives have become unbalanced and disjointed. We are in a crisis as a culture.