A deceptively simple framework for figuring out who you want to be in the world from a program from Intersections at Boston College.

1. What gives you joy? Who are you? What are you passionate about? What excites you?

To answer these questions, it might help to ask yourself what have been the “defining moments” in your life, the turning points that shaped who you are or the moments when you made decisions that, consciously or not, have made you the person you are today? Do these point to what gives you joy?

2. Are you good at these things? Do you have the talents to pursue the things that you are passionate about?

Maybe it’s clear to you that you do. But maybe you don’t even recognize the talents that you have. Or maybe you do know some of the things you are good at but you don’t think they’re important. You don’t see them as real strengths.

3. Does anybody need you to do these things?

The novelist and theologian Frederick Buechner describes vocation as “the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” We don’t live for ourselves alone. We don’t invent really big questions and worthy dreams by ourselves; the communities we belong to offer them to us. Only in relationships–and especially when we give ourselves in love to other people, to communities, and to significant ideals–do we really discover the full meaning of our lives. Because you have been shaped by your relationships and by the communities that mark your personal history–your family, your school friends, the people you have met in service programs-you have become part of an ever wider circle of belonging.

real player video of the original talk
Learn more about the Intersections Program at Boston College.