A Second Vocation: Is It for Me?

 

     There comes a time in one’s life when, for one reason or another, we can no longer continue to work on whatever it is we have worked all our lives. Some of the reasons may include retirement, health issues, legal issues, an acquired disability, or we just hated our last job, had enough and quit. Of course there may be others. One possible step in our life journey may be a second vocation, one that we like and to which we can give much effort still. One that will makes us feel productive and useful for years to come.

    Possible second vocations may include, but are not limited to, coaching, arts, crafts, voluntary work, free lance work in one’s area of expertise, consulting, writing, giving talks on areas we have expertise, and mentoring. Of course, sky’s the limit. The second vocation should be something we know about, something we like doing, and something that will bring us joy, beyond a possible income influx.

    Why keep doing things? If you retired, you may reasonably ask this. Why should I work if I retired? If you are recently retired, you may have not reached the point where you wake up and feel bored from doing nothing, yet. You very well could get there soon. Then what? People want to feel productive still, they may need the extra income, beyond their pension or retirement pay, we may simply want to feel useful, as this gives us a certain dignity and happiness.

    A second vocation should take us into our third age and beyond. When we love what we do, this almost always guarantees durability of that activity. We will last longer doing it and loving it. An activity we love will keep us productive and that feeling will do wonders for our health, making us feel good. This will make our golden years, beyond age 60, happy ones.

    Staying busy will keep us out of trouble: productive life, happy life, healthy life. It will be a joyful life full of purpose and dignity, so a second vocation may be the thing for us.

 

    In our next article, coming up in a couple of weeks, we’ll show you how to do a little “self-interview” to figure out what that second vocation should be, and an “action plan” of how to make it happen, or bring it to reality.

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