vocation

I am all for finding the work that satisfies your soul, and then doing it. I work in libraries and I feel it was the work I was born to do. I recently went through a crisis because I realized that as perfect as library work is for me, most library jobs will not pay the rent. That made me really sad, and I started thinking about general administrative work, because what is library work except a specific application of the general principles of administration? Anyway, that crisis was averted when I recently managed to land a job that allows me to support myself and my daughter.

Recently, I discovered that a former friend of mine has started her own business. She has become a Life Coach. This struck me as funny (both funny ha-ha and funny ironic), because the reason she is my former friend rather than my present friend is that she seemed to have difficulty being my friend, needing rather to be my coach. We were close at a time when I was very vulnerable and lonely and eagerly welcomed her attention and ministrations. When I started feeling better about myself and began asserting my own desires and making my own choices, which often didn't align with what she thought was best for me, our friendship faded. I haven't missed it.

I forget how I found out about her new vocation, but it was from a funny source. Someone I knew said something like, "I know someone you know" and it turned out a friend of this friend had engaged my former friend as her Life Coach. In an idle moment, I googled my former friend and sure enough, there was her website, describing the services she offers in a nauseatingly new-age kind of way.

I know lots of people make bad decisions, even sometimes ones that might have been avoided if they'd had some guidance. I'm glad those people seek out someone who can help steer them away from bad choices and toward good ones. I hope that in her chosen vocation my former friend coaches from a place of true caring, rather than a need to be in control of the choices of others and a feeling that she can make better choices than others. Perhaps she is a better coach than she was a friend.