Dear Your Holiness:Getting back to my question from Monday….What do you do if you identify your passions and all the possible intersections with society’s needs and you’d still rather be miserable in your current job than make yourself miserable about your own passions?Is it that you just haven’t found the right intersection?

Ms. Theologian would first like to remind you that it is almost Thanksgiving. This is a stressful time in which we try to pretend we like our family members all of the time (rather than that we love our family members all of the time and like them at certain intervals). This is the time of the year when it is normal to grieve for losses, normal to feel like most of what we do is meaningless, like the earth is a barren gray wasteland (at least in the northern hemisphere) and totally normal to throw up our hands and ask God, “Why, why, why?”

Please, spreadsheet-photobic, listen to me.

Ms. Theologian thinks you need to cultivate a little patience in this process, yes, process, not outcome, of discernment of avocation. It’s not an overnight thang, a girl thang, or a sex thang. It’s a process thing. Ms. Theologian could draw an analogy to sex, but she’s going to assume it’s fairly obvious.

You also are engaging in all or nothing thinking (for shame!). This sort of reasoning exaggerates everything creating, essentially a false dichotomy between choices. Along those lines, it’s as if you’re either going to find the PERFECT JOB or DIE FROM SPREADSHEET ABUSE.

Ms. Theologian is reminded of something her friend and artist, Beth Krumholz said, which was that essentially there are no paths for most of us. We see everyday how to live in Corporate America–go to college, suck up appropriately, get a “good” job, marry, breed, suck up more, etc. What if that’s not what we want? We never see alternative paths modeled. At least not in the mainstream media. But, Spreadsheet-phobic, these alternative paths are out there regardless.

Take a little step toward each of these passions that you’ve identified. Pick up a hobby that involves each of them. Explore how other people have used these hobbies. Some of the best professions are previous hobbies have turned into means to support oneself. Money comes. It does. They told Ms. Theologian that at the career planning center.

Be brave. Be honest. Be rigorous. You can do this.

xo

–Ms. Theologian