A Vocation

Why do we tend to think we have only one, singular, authentic vocation? In this article from the Notre Dame alumni magazine, a philosophy grad student waxes refreshingly sanguine about the prospects of the academic humanities in the face of all the crisis talk to which we've grown accustomed since 2008 (and, of course, before -- the humanities are always in some kind of crisis or another). It's entitled "A Defense of My Life's Vocation."

http://magazine.nd.edu/news/12207-a-defense-of-my-life-s-vocation/

I'm skeptical of the idea that we have a single calling (and that even if we did, that calling somehow takes the form of a societally approved profession). We tend to talk about vocations when it comes to professions that require lots of training and singular dedication: academia, the clergy, medicine. But no one says about their career in, say, telecom ad sales or consulting that they've answered a calling. No one gets a road-to-Damascus flash about accounting.

So what is a vocation? Do we have more than one of them in our lifetimes?