Calling vs. Creativity

My wife was watching Oprah yesterday, and Oprah was discussing a new class she was putting online that was designed to help people find their calling. The class was led by Marcus Buckingham, a former senior researcher at the Gallup Organization, has lately been working as a consultant and author focused on finding personal strengths. He now is bringing his work to the mainstream.I was a little lukewarm about his approach. A key point was the idea of calling, which is the idea that each of us are "called" to one specific vocation/role/what-have-you in the world. This is essentially a Divinely-led mission-statement that we need to discover. Marcus sets out to find what it was we've always wanted to do, and to create a job role based on this calling.

It's a really nice idea. There's this one thing that we're called here to do today, and everything else is a pale shadow of what we could have if we are following our calling. Looking at it a little closer, though, it doesn't sound as effective to me. I don't mean that just from a cynical standpoint. The idea of the Divine should be huge, which means huge with potential. Is there really only one thing or one set of things that would be right for someone? I want to suggest a counter-view to this idea of calling, being creativity. What if, instead of one job we have to figure out, whatever Divinity there is behind the universe is looking to be a co-creator with us?

No matter what is beyond us, I like the idea that there isn't necessarily a fixed endpoint. I like the idea of serendipity, of new things arising out of our work that nobody expected. I like the idea of God being surprised at what we do, and liking to be surprised. And if we're on our own, I hope we can pull greatness out of ourselves in unexpected ways.

Overall, Marcus' approach did seem to have a lot of creativity in it. He challenged people to do things that are outside of their routine, and their rut. He made people be more introspective on how they lived their lives. We all need to do that sometimes. But I like the title of Marcus' first book: First, Break All the Rules. I don't know that any of us will ever know with absolute certainty that we are on the path that God/The Universe/etc. had intended for us. I think it's better to experiment, and see what can be found out. Use your greatest strength. Challenge your greatest weakness. But just do something.

Just my thoughts. I'll put it out to other folks out there: do you like the idea of a calling? What do you think makes up a calling? Can calling mix with creativity?