Vocation

Recently I was talking with someone about what I do for a living. 

Somehow the conversation came up about my being a reporter in a career sense of the word. When I talk about my job, I say, "I'm a reporter." When I call someone to interview, I say I'm a reporter with this newspaper and I want to talk to you about this thing, etc. I don't introduce myself as a journalist. 

Yarn. More on that in a minute... 

But I am a journalist also. 

Our conversation turned to whether I use "journalist" and "reporter" interchangeably. I realized I define the two as separate but related concepts. 

For me, being a journalist is a vocation. A journalist is a communicator, a story-sharer, a truth-teller. 

I am a journalist, who happens to be a reporter as a way of having a job. A reporter, I feel, is a very specific role: you interview people and research stuff and write an article about it, or broadcast something about it or whatever you do to get your news out. It's very concrete.

That raises the question, what if I do not remain a reporter forever? What if I took some other job one day, and ended up, oh, starting a yarn shop or managing a toy store? Would I still consider myself a journalist? 

And in that sense, should I really define "journalist" as vocation? 

I suppose there are different levels of vocation. You've got the serious types of "this is my life's calling" vocations like the priesthood or marriage or religious life. Sacramental stuff, ya know. 

But there's a lower level of vocation, I think, where this funky journalist term falls in. It's kind of seeing yourself as called to this specific role in life and society in this present moment, though perhaps this type of vocation could change. 

If I were to indeed start up a yarn shop or whatever, I'm guessing my smallish vocational role as journalist would become something new. 

This is all theoretical - I don't know much about yarn or starting small businesses, and I don't think I could envision myself as managing a toy store, or any store at that rate. 

But only time will tell. For now, I embrace my vocation as a journalist, and continue to story-tell and communicate the truths shared by the people I meet.