Don’t Settle: Using Your God-Given Talents in the Workplace

Over the past few months, I’ve spent a lot of time talking to recent and soon-to-be college graduates about what they will pursue professionally. The most common refrains I hear are, “I’ll do whatever I can get” or “I’m not sure—really anything.” Even though these responses might seem natural for a new grad, this creates an insidious outlook on work and what someone is meant to do.

The Catholic Church teaches that each of us are endowed with natural strengths and weaknesses, and we can see this in day-to-day life. Certain people are organized, others are creative, some are both, and still others are neither. But regardless of how many talents one has been given (or thinks they have been given), we are called to use them.

In Matthew 25, Christ tells us about a master who gives his servants resources (talents) in proportion to their abilities. Even though they produce different levels of outcomes, they receive the same reward because both used their resources well: “Well done, good and faithful servant; you have shown you are faithful in small things; I will trust you with greater; come and join in your master’s happiness.” 

Work is one of the avenues that allows us to glorify God because it allows us to pursue virtue whatever our station is in the world. Each of us, however, have a unique vocation—and one of the best ways of hearing that calling is by looking at what one is good at. Our path to God, our happiness, depends on our pursuit of this vocation, and God does not call people to things they cannot achieve (with His grace).

God wants us to be happy here on Earth, and doing what we are naturally good at will not only make us more virtuous, but also happier. If someone is working in a job they are good at, they are much more likely to be interested in their work. And if someone is interested in their work, they are much more likely to be happy.

Today, one of the leading reported stressors is anxiety at work. If people were happier at work, it would lead to an increase in happiness in the rest of their lives too, uplifting their families and society at the same time. St. John Paul II said that “human work is a key, probably the essential key, to the whole social question, if we try to see the question really from the point of view of man’s good.” Viewing work as something through which we can chase God and grow closer to Him leads us to understand how important it is that our job choice “fits” us.

When it comes to finding a job which utilizes our natural talents, there are individual and societal obstacles that we must overcome—which is not easy. Social obstacles include the current state of the economy and social order, as well as companies’ methods of hiring. Individual obstacles are the barriers to doing good work which we place in front of ourselves of our own free will, and those of which we are most culpable if placed there for any unnecessary reason.

As Christians, we must do our best to use our talents well in whatever situation we are placed in, but we should certainly use foresight and planning to try and be in places where we are most able to do what God has put us here to do. Practically, this looks like basic things like career prep and research, but it also includes making sure that we never get “too comfortable” in where we are—always pushing ourselves to grow as better workers and human beings.

There are real barriers to getting a job where you can do the work which you were given the most talents to do. A new father might have to take a less appropriate job in order to provide for his family. A student right out of college might take a temporary job while they try to get a better idea of what their talents even are. A downturn in the economy might limit the number of opportunities available. Ultimately, however, we are called to do what we are able to with what is given to us.

The servant who received and developed the two talents received the same praise as the one who had received five, and he was admitted to his master’s joy. The wicked servant, on the other hand, acted out of fear and hid away his talent. Mirrored in that fear is the temptation to take and stay comfortably in the “easy” or unmotivating job—one where we are not cultivating or exercising our God-given talents. Regardless of whether or not one has the perfect job, there are always opportunities to cultivate virtue—we ought to acknowledge this. But even still, we should aim to be the most virtuous we can be, and that involves doing our best to do what God put us in this world to do.

Today, job seekers send their applications into what I often hear described as a “black hole.” They end up taking work that doesn’t fit them well. There are certainly situations where you need to pay the bills, and it’s true that you should do as prudence dictates. But as soon as you are on a path, it’s much easier to stay put. It’s comfortable, and comfortable is easier. So, when a recent college graduate takes a job that doesn’t necessarily fit him or her well, it’s likely that they stay in that position years longer than they told themselves they would.

In Laborem Exercens, John Paul II writes that “work is ‘for man’ and not man ‘for work’.” As a culture, we need to put human happiness and flourishing back at the center of what it means to work. Excellence should always be pursued, in any profession, but we must also remember that we are endowed by our Creator with specific talents suited to us, and therefore must use them as well as we can. Then we too can hear from our Father, “Well done, my good and trustworthy servant.”

Photo by Jason Goodman on Unsplash