Living life ‘to the core’: Enacting a calling through configurations of multiple jobs

Abstract

Most of us will be familiar with the saying, ‘Find something you love to do, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life’. But is it accurate? Through interviews with individuals who have felt beckoned towards such an activity – in other words, who have a calling – we explain why this saying holds true for some, but not for others. We found that many called individuals have conditions, which are self-determined limitations on how, where and with whom they are driven to engage in their callings. Drawing on this idea, we differentiate a calling core, comprised of activities that meet all an individual’s conditions, from periphery activities that fall within the domain but only meet some or no conditions. Core conditionality can, in turn, explain the configuration of jobs people will be inclined to pursue in turning their calling into a career. For example, some called individuals with conditional cores deliberately eschew all-encompassing callings, instead pursuing stable non-calling work alongside part-time calling jobs that meet all their conditions. We also learned why individuals may change their enactment approaches over time as they develop a clearer understanding of what conditions truly matter to them.