Yielding to Their Separation

Let me start with a poem. If you know me, you know I often do. In Robert Frost's "Two Tramps in Mud Time," a man is chopping wood in a forest and enjoying it. As he puts it:

The weight of an ax-head poised aloft,
The grip of earth on outspread feet,
The life of muscles rocking soft
And smooth and moist in vernal heat.

Along come two lumberjacks who recognize that he doesn't really know how to handle the ax and clearly want to take over the job for pay. The man isn't having it, and this is what he says to himself:

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes.

So here's the question. What to do when you spend your days on vocation (what you "must" do) rather than avocation (what you "love" to do)? After all, as Thoreau put it, most of us do in fact "lead lives of quiet desperation." We can't ditch "must" for "love." Instead, so many of us (myself included) yield to their separation. Double-vision. Eyes anything but one in sight.

The word "vocation" comes from a Latin word meaning "to call." Not surprisingly, the word "avocation" means "to call away." It's a tug of war. (Incidentally, the word "vacation" -- identical to the word "vocation" but for one important letter -- comes from a root meaning to "give up" or "leave." Vocation calls you to task, and vacation sets you free. But I digress. At least kind of.)

My thought is that there is "avocation" all around us if we look and listen. While our tasks call and claim us, our passions can at least interrupt for a minute. There are moments for each of us -- in every day if we are paying attention -- when we are swinging the ax in a grove of wooded trees. I for one am going to try harder to find and recognize those moments. And that, in truth, is why I'm starting this blog. Because when I'm thinking and writing about the lessons and insights around me, I can feel my ax swinging. And it feels good. What makes you feel that way?