I've spent some time lately thinking about what that 'one thing' is that I excel at. If I had to choose one thing in my life that I wanted to do for the rest of my life, what would it be?
You see, I envy people who have a focus that drives them towards excellence. There are those who have chosen to be great at one thing and drive themselves to be the best in their field. That's not me. It has never been me.
I am really good at a lot of things. There are many things that I am passionate about. My interests are varied and sometimes completely disconnected.
Cooking is a joy for me and I'm really good at it, but I'm not good enough nor am I passionate enough about it to open a catering business or work for a restaurant.
After working in the printing business for 20+ years, I have quite a bit of knowledge about graphic arts, design and layout. But, honestly, there is no way I could stomach returning to that industry. I also know that I'm not an artist and I would never be hired as one either.
Music is my background and creating music is a great source of joy for me. I know that I am a really good pianist and accompanying is something that I do very well. But, the idea of spending hours and hours in a practice room or sitting in front of a piano for the rest of my life removes all thoughts of joy of music from me. My father desperately wanted me to be a concert pianist. I removed that dream from him before I even left high school. NO! I envy those who focused on their music to become great performers in whatever genre they chose.
While I love, love, love leading worship and directing choirs and have been pretty darned successful in both of those areas of music, I don't foresee a lifetime of doing that. Now, I will admit that these two areas would entice me to rethink my position if anything ever popped back into my reality. Both bring me extraordinary joy. But, for now ... I don't see that happening. Especially when I'm work with and support people who are much better than me at worship leadership.
Speaking of leadership, I find that I can get passionate about that topic in a hurry. Excellent, honorable leadership is lacking in so many areas today. People have been put into positions of leadership that have absolutely no talent and no desire to be there other than the financial gain of their position. It breaks my heart to see the pressure that is placed on them when they have no idea how to cope - and then to see the destruction of the teams they lead simply because that one person is so lousy at what they do.
Understanding and translating for others the intricacies and mysteries of scripture is one of my great passions. There is nothing I love more than uncovering the very cohesive structure of scripture and finding ways to explain it so that everyone can find the joy of knowing what God says to us and why He says it the way that He does.
History, observation, technology, anthropology, grammar, writing, words/vocabulary, teaching, fiction, science fiction, research, books, psychology, philosophy ... on and on the list goes of things that I can't learn enough about or that I get passionately involved in. And by the way, I'm probably one of the better internet researcher/stalker/looker-uppers you'll ever know. All of these things ... and yet, still I wonder. What is it that I am specifically good at doing? What is that one thing?
See ... that's the problem with me. I think about ice skaters, performers, costumers, dancers, mathematicians, astronomers, astronauts, engineers, chefs, translators ... those who specialize in a field and live out their lives focused on a single goal. I will never be like that. I don't know how to be like that.
If I could just get someone to define who exactly it is that I am and create a position with a good job description for me to do all of those things that I love to do and can get passionate about doing, I'd have to kiss that person's face!
No comments:
Post a Comment