Your life called....

"What am I supposed to do?"  I often asked myself that question during my former life as an employee, with multiple layers of supervisors.  It was either a direct question to one of them, in light of conflicting, but "equally important" priorities, or just a cry from the heart, to no one in particular, when I could not see how to fit eight hour of work into seven hours. 

Now that I'm free from that situation, the question remains, albeit in a slightly different form.  I do not have supervisors whom I must satisfy in order to keep a job, but I still am surrounded by people who, for many different reasons, wish to weigh in on what I am "supposed to do".  The children want their favorite school clothes clean.  My business partners and mentors want to see me doing certain activities that are equated with business-building.  My husband wants time for us to review the budget and review our days.  The children's school wants volunteer hours.  My coach wants me to put in more practice time.  I want to do off-ice training at least four times a week. 

None of these feel like a calling, like a unique gift, or something that I can impart to make the world a better place.  Some would argue, vociferously, that my providing clean clothes makes their corner of the world a better place, or that taking notes at a parent committee meeting serves the greater good.  Lost in all this is...what is my calling?  It could be something as simple as providing a nurturing home for a future world leader.  It could be as complicated as crusading for clean drinking water everywhere.  I believe that everyone, if he or she really takes the time to sit back and assess, can come up with a passion, a gift or a calling that completes the sentence, "When I have the time/money, what I'd REALLY like to do is...."  One of the saddest things that can be said about a person who has passed on is that he or she had always hoped to do X, but other life events had gotten in the way. 

I had the opportunity to see first-hand just how little I mattered personally when I left the puffing, wheezing, grinding machine that was my previous work-setting.  Although I was told often how important I was to keeping the machine going, and how important my skills were in the service of the machine,  I understand in hindsight that keeping that machine puffing, wheezing and grinding is really the end goal, and who makes that happen is of secondary importance.  I had suspected as much, and it is bemusing to see how thoroughly I bought into others' idea of what I was "supposed to do." 

I hope now that at least part of my legacy to my friends, my family and especially my children will be "When her life called, she did not let it go to voicemail."