(Note: I use AI to help me translate my stories from Japanese to English.)
Do you know the ideas of a goal-oriented lifestyle and a calling-oriented lifestyle?
A Japanese historian proposed these ideas.
You are probably familiar with a goal-oriented lifestyle. This is a masculine style of living. You set a goal and try to achieve it.
However, you may not know about a calling-oriented lifestyle. In a calling-oriented lifestyle, you don’t set a goal yourself. Instead, God sets a goal for you. You simply do your best in the environment you are given. Then, in the future, you may find yourself doing something you could never have imagined.
Famous examples of goal-oriented lifestyles are Tiger Woods and Shohei Ohtani.
Tiger Woods is considered one of the best golfers in history.
He started practicing golf when he was only 10 months old, and he became a professional golfer at the age of 20.
His father believed that Tiger Woods was born to play golf. He had a clear plan to make Tiger a world-class golfer.
Shohei Ohtani is a Japanese baseball player who is regarded as one of the best baseball players in history.
When Ohtani was in high school, he set a goal of becoming the best baseball player in the world. He broke this goal into smaller elements such as character, luck, mental strength, speed, and control. Then he worked to improve each of these elements.
Examples of calling-oriented lifestyles include Steve Jobs and Alberto Zaccheroni.
Steve Jobs was a co-founder of Apple, which is one of the most successful companies in the world. He gave a legendary speech at Stanford University as follows:
“I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK.
It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting. （――）
And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example: Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great.
It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.
And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backward ten years later.
Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something, your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart. Even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.“
He spoke about the importance of connecting the dots. This way of living might be called a calling-oriented lifestyle.
He dropped out of college and secretly took interesting classes such as calligraphy. At that time, he didn’t know that this knowledge and experience would be useful in the future. However, he tried to create many “dots.”
Later, when he created the Macintosh computer, his knowledge of calligraphy turned out to be very useful.
Alberto Zaccheroni is a former Italian football manager. He has managed a number of top clubs such as AC Milan, Inter Milan, and Juventus. He is considered a world-class football manager.
When he started his career as a football manager, he never imagined that he would become a manager of world-class clubs. Before that, he had experienced many jobs outside football management.
He retired as an amateur football player when he was 20. After that, he became an employee at his family’s pension business. He also managed an insurance agency. At the same time, he worked as a football coach for children.
I once watched an interview with him, and he said something like this:
“When I started my career as a football manager, I never imagined that I would manage big clubs. I just tried to do my best at each club I managed. I always focused on the next step and didn’t think much about the distant future.”
His way of living reflects a calling-oriented lifestyle. He simply did his best at every team he managed. He didn’t have a long-term plan. Instead, he focused on the present. Eventually, he became a world-class manager.
At school or at work, people are often encouraged to have dreams or goals. However, some people cannot easily find them. Those people may live a calling-oriented lifestyle.
There are advantages and disadvantages to a goal-oriented lifestyle.
One advantage is that it is easy to focus your energy because you have clear goals. You are less likely to take detours. You may also feel secure because your direction is clear.
However, one disadvantage is that it may be difficult to adapt to changes in the times. For example, some children dream of becoming certain professionals, but those professions might not exist in the future.
Another disadvantage is that your ego may become stronger. If you focus too much on your goals, you may become overly self-conscious and develop a strong ego.
Shunryū Suzuki, a famous Zen master, wrote that he does not set goals. This is because when people set goals, they become too self-conscious. In Zen practice, monks try to forget about themselves, so they do not set goals.
There are also advantages and disadvantages to a calling-oriented lifestyle.
One advantage is that you do not have to compete with other people. You simply walk your own path. Your ego may become weaker because you are less self-conscious.
The disadvantage is that you may sometimes feel anxious because you do not know where your path will lead.
I may have a calling-oriented lifestyle. I have simply done what I wanted to do.
At university, I studied mechanical engineering. In graduate school, I studied life sciences. After that, I studied philosophy, religion, literature, and English.
Some people choose a specific specialty and become professionals in that field. However, I cannot live like that. I often take detours because I want to understand the bigger picture.
When I was in graduate school, I was not sure what I wanted to do with my life. At that time, a teacher criticized me. He said that people should choose their profession when they are 15 years old.
However, there are many people like me. They do not know what they truly want to do.
I think it is okay not to have clear goals. If you try many different things, you can create many “dots.” In the future, those dots may connect, and you might be surprised by your calling.