What I try to point out is the role an ordinary person can have in seeing the child's destiny. You have to have a feeling for the child.

Calling can refer not only to ways of doing - meaning work - but also to ways of being.

I've found that contemporary psychology enrages me with its simplistic ideas of human life, and also its emptiness.

In the past, friendship was a huge thing. But it's hard for us to think of friendship as a calling, because it's not a vocation.

Suppose that throughout your childhood you were good with numbers. Other kids used to copy your homework. You figured store discounts faster than your parents. People came to you for help with such things. So you took accounting and eventually became a tax auditor for the IRS. What an embarrassing job, right? You feel you should be writing poetry or doing aviation mechanics or whatever. But then you realize that tax collecting can be a calling too.

Follow the lead of your symptoms, for there’s usually a myth in the mess, and a mess is an expression of soul.

It helps to regard soul as an active intelligence, forming and plotting each person's fate. Translators use "plot" to render the ancient Greek word mythos in English. The plots that entangle our souls and draw forth our characters are the great myths. That is why we need a sense of myth and knowledge of different myths to gain insight into our epic struggles, our misalliances, and our tragedies. Myths show the imaginative structures inside our messes, and our human characters can locate themselves against the background of the characters of myth.