An extract from Benedictus, by John O'Donohue

Callings

"It is devastating to feel trapped in a form of life where you feel utterly misplaced and all your effort is laboured; everything you do is done against the grain.You take no joy or pleasure in what you do and your heart is haunted by alternative lives you will never have. When you feel like this, it can make for a bitter and resentful life - a life where you are neither seen nor understood for much of the time - and your gifts remain locked away, never to emerge.

It is clearly time to change what you are doing; perhaps sacrifice the familiar in order to find your true calling. Such change can utterly transform your life. It is such a relief and joy to find the calling that expresses and incarnates your spirit. When you find that you are doing what you love, what you were brought here to do, it makes for a rich and contented life. You have come into rhythm with your longing. Your work and action emerge naturally; you don't have to force yourself. Your energy is immmediate. Your passion is clear and creative. A new calling can open the door into the house of vision and belonging. You feel at home in your life, heart and hearth at one."

Dying with your boots on

I had this conversation recently with a family member. Neither of us has a pension pot worthy of the name, and we fell to speculating about those who had. Or rather, thought they had, until recently. The small print on all those adverts suddenly sprang to mind: "Prices can go down as well as up," or whatever the paraphrase was. Or perhaps, "Prices can go down as well as plummet." Many people only slightly older than myself are now looking at seriously reduced pensions, and contemplating working until their 70s simply because they can't afford not to.

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