The moment you summon the courage to disappoint nearly everyone in your life

“I found myself at one of life’s crossroads, the “safe” path leading in one direction, uncertainty—and possibility—in the other.

Eventually I came to realize that a calling is just that: a whisper in the distance. Most of us don’t wake up one day and decide we were born to be a horse veterinarian or an opera singer. That’s a story we tell ourselves after the fact, once we’ve found ourselves wherever we happen to end up.

No, a calling is an intuitive hint, a tug we experience when we’re doing something that feels right: This is awesome! I’m going to keep doing this and see where it takes me.

If we keep listening to those hints and letting the tugs guide us, if we heed the call, we soon find that we’re walking our own path. No matter where we’re going, we’re exactly where we’re supposed to be.

So no, I didn’t suddenly realize at the age of twenty-one that I wanted to be an artist, an action sports photographer, or the founder of an online learning platform. I simply decided to listen to my gut. I knew I wanted to take photos, simple as that. As long as I was doing what felt right, I figured, the rest would figure itself out—and it did.

This was the moment I summoned the courage to disappoint nearly everyone in my life. For the second time, I abandoned my plan for the future and took my first, hesitant step on a new path, the path in pursuit of my creative calling.

I’m still on that path today, and I’ve never looked back.”

From Creative Calling: Establish A Daily Practice, Infuse Your World With Meaning, and Succeed In Work + Life by Chase Jarvis