The New Essay
1.0 Listening to Life 1.1 Why should we “listen to our lives?” Because we should listen first to what our life intends for us to do rather than just telling our life what our values and truths are on our own. 1.2 How could a “wrong turn” direct us to a vocation? Give and example. If the self seeks not pathology but wholeness, then the willful pursuit of vocation is an act of violence toward ourselves. Our lives are experiments with the truth, says Parker, and in an experiment negative results are at least as important as successes. 2.0 Now I Become Myself 2.1 Discuss Parker’s perspective on vocation. How do we arrive “there?” He thinks that it can take a long time to become the person one has always been; vocation comes from a voice external to us. It is a voice moral to our demands, one we don’t know yet. We arrive in vocation only after a long journey through alien lands. We must travel in a journey of darkness. 2.2 When we lose track of true self, how do we get back on our feet? One way is to seek clues in stories from our younger years, years when we lived closer to our birthright gifts. From the beginning out lives lay down clues to selfhood and vocation, though the clues may be hard to decode. But trying to interpret them is profoundly worthwhile. Those clues are helpful in counteracting the conventional concept of vocation, which insists that our lives must be driven by “oughts.” We do not find our callings by conforming ourselves to some abstract moral code. 2.3 Identify clues to selfhood and vocation in your life. I told people when I was little that when I grew up I wanted to be a dolphin trainer. As I grew older I realized the reality of how I might not be able to provide myself with a substantial living this way but how I could find other jobs working with animals that could involve dolphins. This still was challenging but it led me to find out my love for children and how I wanted to become a teacher. 2.4 How can we benefit from a “journey into darkness?” It is essential to tell about your journey into darkness because it is an important part of coming to selfhood.