Reflections From High School Career Day: Integrating Career and Vocation
“Add a supernatural motive to your ordinary professional work, and you will have sanctified it” (Saint Josemaría Escrivá).
When I was invited recently to speak to a high school classroom of young women for their career day, I wanted to deliver a message that would resonate, encourage, and stand the test of time—a message I needed to hear as a young woman and a message I need to remind myself of each day. As I reflected on the structure of my talk, I realized that what was lacking for me in any discussion of career was how it would serve or be integrated into my vocation.
On Work and Motherhood
I realized that this fundamental relationship between paid work and the work I am called to perform in my domestic life was somehow overlooked. The absence of this discussion caused a fear of being a working mother. The images of the working mother in my 18-year-old mind were created both from what I had seen but also from what I had not seen. What did a flourishing working mother look like?
So, I reframed the narrative of my talk. Rather than sharing my accomplishments, I focused on how motherhood led me on the path to doing work that I couldn’t even imagine at 18. I wrote a small book that was inspired by my son. Without my family, I also never would have realized how important it is to me to work from my home. They jostle me out of routine in a way that keeps me creative and prudent with how I use my time. They force me to practice virtue in my work. I’m reminded to contemplate how my callings serve my primary work of my vocation. Our vocations are generous in the ways in which they open up the space for us to serve and use our gifts. In many ways, my primary vocation opened the door to the kind of work I was called to do.
On Changing the Landscape
I read an article as I was preparing the notes for my talk on how colleges are failing to prepare students for the types of jobs that will exist in the future. These types of articles take a discouraging angle, but these challenges hold opportunities to be embraced. My work didn’t exist when I was 18, and it’s impossible to prepare someone perfectly for jobs we have yet to create.
When we nurture our inner life through prayer, reading, and friendship, we possess all the tools we need to find creative solutions to the needs of the world. What can’t be taught in a classroom is how to become a virtuous person who can steer the world toward goodness. We need compassionate, ethical women who are witnesses. The questions we need to ask ourselves surround the nature of the work we are called to: Where do I discover my true identity? How does our work become holy?
On Communion
Women in particular face a difficult challenge of balancing their time, serving others, and nourishing their own soul. Judgment and competition are also rooted in an erroneous view of our dignity as women. This erroneous view is squashed by searching for the deep and rich hidden life that each woman possesses and the gifts she has been given.
In Dietrich von Hildebrand’s “The Art of Living,” there is an essay on communion written by his wife, Alice von Hildebrand. In her essay, she writes:
“Why communion so often fails to be reached in our society is due to the importance granted to our work, our function in society. . . . My students tell me that, from their early youth on, the whole accent of education is put on the question, What will you do to earn a living? Little is said (if anything at all) about what one will be as a person.”
The question of “what we do” often overshadows the crucial question of “who we will become.” Accumulating degrees, promotions, and success may enable us to earn a living, but if that success comes at the price of nurturing our inner life, then we have lost the true art of living.
At the end of my presentation, a young woman shared that she wants to be a writer in order to help others. I thought it was a striking expression of our desire as writers to connect deeply with others. Through prayer and love of God, our work can form communion and bring healing through beauty.
Jody C. Benson is a freelance writer and editor and an instructor in Thy Olive Tree’s Fiat Self-Publishing Academy. She is the author of Behold: A Reflection Journal Where Wonder, Creation, and Stewardship Meet. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband and children. Learn more at jodycbenson.com and jodycbenson.substack.com.