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Walking back to happiness: the resurgence of latent callings in later life

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Catherine Bailey explores how unfulfilled passions can bring deep happiness and social connection.

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This video video discusses the concept of "callings" in relation to work, distinguishing between work viewed as a job, a career, or a calling. A calling is characterized as a passionate engagement with one's work, which can lead to positive emotions and personal well-being when pursued. The speaker highlights research showing that not pursuing a calling can result in negative feelings such as regret and stress.

The research introduces the idea of "latent callings," which refers to unfulfilled passions in individuals that persist over time and reemerge when circumstances allow. It categorizes abandoned callings into "missed callings" (those given up) and "additional callings" (having multiple callings that may not all be pursued).

The study particularly focuses on individuals who felt called to music but didn't pursue it professionally, exploring how they managed this throughout their working lives. It identifies three coping pathways: the Accommodation Pathway (maintaining music as a hobby), the Deferred Pathway (long periods without engaging with music), and the Emergent Pathway (initially weak calling that leads to extensive retraining in retirement).

Findings suggest that many participants expressed gratitude for not pursuing a musical career, as doing so allowed them to enjoy music more freely and with greater agency in their later years. Overall, the text calls for deeper research into the complexities of callings and the experiences of individuals with latent callings, particularly in retirement, suggesting that this phase can be a time of proactive engagement rather than decline.

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A calling is an orientation that we have towards work.

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So typically we talk about work as being seen

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as either a job, a career, or a calling.

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Um, so if you see your work as a job, it's something

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that you do and in order to earn money,

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but you don't necessarily feel very strongly about it,

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if you see it as a career, then you see it very much as a,

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as as a stepping stone, a pathway onto some better,

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more powerful, better paid job, for example.

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But if you see your work as a calling,

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then you feel very passionate about it.

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You feel very engaged with it.

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There are lots of different definitions of callings.

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So the one that we've used in the research,

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that we did was as a,

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a meaningful passion towards a domain.

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So that's the definition that Dobro developed in her work.

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And so this is a secular definition of a calling

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as something that we feel very passionate about.

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Now, all the research tends to show

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that if you see your work as a calling,

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that's very beneficial for you.

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So if, for example, you find you are working maybe

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as a scientist and you, that is your calling, you are going

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to experience lots of positive emotions

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and also high levels of, of personal wellbeing

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because you are fulfilling your calling through your work.

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So we know that callings are very good

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for us if we pursue them.

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However, there is also a strand of research,

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which is looked into the question of

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what happens if we don't pursue our calling.

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Now that literature has very much tended to suggest

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that this is very bad for us.

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So if you have a calling as a scientist,

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but you are working as something else,

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then you are missing your calling.

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And that is, has been associated with feelings

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of regret, depression, stress and so on.

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So this was very much what a, a calling is

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and what happens if we, abandon our callings.

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It's not a good thing for us.

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So a latent calling is a new addition that we've come up

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with, through our research to add

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to the prior literature on abandoned callings.

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So, so far what we know is that there are two forms

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of abandoned callings.

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There are missed callings and additional callings.

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Now, a missed calling, is one that you,

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that you've given up.

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And an, additional calling is maybe where you've got two

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or possibly even three different callings to work.

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And obviously you may not well be able to, activate all

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of those through your work.

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So you might be feel called as a scientist

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and also maybe as a musician.

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So you decide to pursue your career as a scientist,

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but then you would have this additional calling

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of being a musician, which was, not something

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that you'd pursued through your work.

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So to date, that's what we knew about abandoned callings.

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However, we've added this idea of a latent calling

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to this sort of repertoire of different types

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of abandoned callings and, and

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What we've defined a latent calling as is a calling that,

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we feel, towards our work that goes unanswered,

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but it's held within our repertoire of identities primed

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to reemerge when the timing is right.

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So in other words, it's a calling

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that never quite goes away, even though we,

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maybe not be acting that out at the moment.

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There's a huge literature out there on callings.

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Um, and I think it's important to distinguish

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between feeling a calling on the one hand

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and pursuing a calling on the other.

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So first of all, we have to feel that we have a calling,

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and then we then have to act on that feeling by pursuing it.

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Now the literature so far has very much suggested

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that we don't get the benefits of feeling a calling

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until we've actually pursued that calling.

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So that's when we get these positive feelings

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and the sense of wellbeing through our work.

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Um, but we have to go through a process in order to

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actually act out our calling.

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So our focus in this paper has been on people

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who feel called to be musicians.

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So if you are feeling called to be a musician

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and you want to become a musician, you then have to go

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through lots of training.

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You need to practice, you need

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to reach a certain standard,

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and you have to kind of feel that you've mastered, music

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to a sufficient level that you are able to then live out

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that calling through your occupational life.

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So during young adulthood, people go through processes

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of trials and experimentation to find out what they want

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to do work-wise,

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and they'll go through these trials, in relation

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to their calling.

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Now, of course, a calling such as music

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is actually quite a difficult one to pursue as a career.

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This is a sector where employment can be quite precarious.

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The hours can be antisocial.

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You may often be working, for example, in the evenings

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or at the weekends.

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Um, work may be hard to come by. The standard is very high.

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And if you're going to train to be a musician,

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you obviously have to have access to the right lessons.

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You have to have good role models,

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and crucially, you have to have a means of practicing.

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Musical instruments are expensive, so you have

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to have an instrument of the right quality

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and you also have to have access to a space

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where you can go to practice.

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So all of these things make it quite likely

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that music can be a calling that many people experience,

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but are actually unable to pursue

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because they haven't got the right resources around them

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to help develop that feeling

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of a calling into the actual practice of a calling.

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The other thing I suppose is worth noting is

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that our callings can kind of wax and wane through life.

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And this is something that hasn't really come out very

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clearly in the literature so far,

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and that we really wanted to explore in our research.

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So the research was very much prompted by my colleague Jane,

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and she was in the pharmacy one day, chatting

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with the pharmacist and he happened

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to mention he was going to be retiring.

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And so she said, what are you going to be doing?

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And he said, I'm going back to music.

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My first love, my real passion in life.

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I can't wait to retire so that I can finally go

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and become a musician.

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And I think this was very much what triggered the idea

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for the research in the first place.

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This interesting idea that you can have this passion

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that's been there all your life,

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but you are only actually able to act on it once you get

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to late career, maybe retirement, which is a kind

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of a a career transition process that then frees us up

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to explore alternative options.

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And this hasn't really been looked at

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before in the research.

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So we spoke with, 32 people who had felt a calling

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to music in their early life,

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but who hadn't pursued that calling

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and had gone on to do other things work-wise,

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but had then picked that calling back up again in, just

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before retirement

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or during that phase into retirement, which is something

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that nobody's really done before.

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The previous research on abandoned callings has tended

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to talk to people in the mid-career phase, at a point

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where perhaps they haven't had

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that opportunity to pick it up again.

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And so because we were speaking with people who were

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that bit older, we were able

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to do these life history interviews

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where we got a real insight into

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how people managed this process of having a calling,

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throughout their life but not pursuing it.

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And then how they went through that process

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of moving into retirement

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that then enabled them to pick it up again.

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So we were very curious to find out

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what their motivations were

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and how they went about doing that.

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So I think we found out some really interesting things.

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And I think the first one was we found out a bit more about

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how people developed their calling in the first place

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and how they then went about the process

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of actually abandoning it.

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So everyone we spoke to felt called to music, some from

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as young and ages two,

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and several of them said, well, it was like breathing,

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you know, it was so fundamental to who I am

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that it was just such a part of me.

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But then in their late teens

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and their twenties, they all decided, actually,

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I'm not going to pursue a career as a musician.

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And there were three main things that were going on here

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that influenced that decision.

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And the first one was, the process

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of future-oriented sense-making.

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So through talking with established musicians,

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gaining more insight into the life of a musician, many

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of them thought, actually, do you know what?

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This isn't really for me.

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I don't really want to have that kind of lifestyle.

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The precarity, the constant worry, and so on.

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The second one was people perceived

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that they didn't have enough talent

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or the disposition to be a musician.

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So whether or not they did have the talent

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Was different from whether they

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perceived that they had the talent.

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So all of these people that we spoke

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to were all very talented musicians.

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Um, but some of them decided, actually,

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I'm very talented maybe,

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but I'm not as talented as the other people on my course.

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Um, and some of them thought, well, being a musician,

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it's not just about being a good musician,

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it's also being a performer.

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And one of our participants, Amy said, well, I just,

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I'm just not a performer.

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That's not something that I could do.

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So even though I could sing

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and I wrote was writing songs,

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I couldn't actually do the performance side of it.

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And the third reason, was lack of social validation.

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So some of our participants were put off a music

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career by their families.

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So one of our participants, he paid played the trumpet,

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and he was invited to join a military band.

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And his fiance said, actually, I really don't want you

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to do this because it means you are going

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to be going away all the time

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and I'm going to be at home on my own,

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and I don't really want that.

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So he gave up, he turned down this opportunity and,

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and gave up music at that point,

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or people tried to get their career off the ground in

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different ways and just simply couldn't do.

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So it's a very competitive field.

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So for a combination of these reasons,

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everyone in our study kind

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of gave up the music at that point.

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Then we found that there were three different ways

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that people coped with that

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and dealt with that through their working lives.

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So everyone went on and did other things.

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So we had a whole range of different things.

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We had people working as secretaries, teachers, scientists,

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all sorts of different things.

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But we found there were three ways that people dealt with

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that through their working life.

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So the first pathway that people took was

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what we call the accommodation pathway.

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So these people maintained a very low level

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of hobby involvement

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with their music throughout their working lives.

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So these people felt a very strong calling to music

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and couldn't quite set it aside completely.

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So they kept it going as a hobby.

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One, one of them described it as a once a week thread,

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and that was very important to them to have that there

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because it meant they hadn't completely

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abandoned their music.

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It was still part of their lives.

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And this positioned them very well

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to pick up music again when they got to retirement

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because they kept up their level of skill

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and they kept up their networks in the field.

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The second group, we've, we've called this group,

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the Deferred Group.

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So this group went for very long periods

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of time without any involvement in music at all.

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So one of our participants, Jack, was a tuba player,

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and he didn't play tuba at all for 40 years.

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So these people, despite feeling a very strong calling,

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life got in the way.

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They were busy at work, they were traveling a lot,

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they had families

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and music just gradually got put onto the back burner.

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But this group did struggle more than the first group.

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So they went through bouts of short-term

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Distress at not playing music,

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but rationalized it to themselves

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and said, well, I'm not able to do the music,

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but at the end of the day,

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there's a good reason for that.

12:03.705 --> 12:06.045
But they did feel quite depressed about it at times.

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Now, the third group, we've called these the people on

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emergent pathway.

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They originally had quite a weak call to music.

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They still had a calling,

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they still felt passionate about it,

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but for these people not getting involved in music was less

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of a, an ordeal for them, if you like.

12:24.425 --> 12:27.245
So they didn't really suffer any negative effects from

12:27.725 --> 12:30.485
pursuing another occupation in comparison

12:30.555 --> 12:31.725
with the deferred group.

12:32.825 --> 12:33.845
But funnily enough,

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the interesting thing about this group is

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that when they finally got to music, in their sort

12:38.885 --> 12:41.605
of later years in retirement, these were the ones

12:41.605 --> 12:43.565
that did the most extensive retraining.

12:43.705 --> 12:46.085
So we had one who did a master's degree in music,

12:46.265 --> 12:47.845
one did a PhD in music

12:47.905 --> 12:51.285
and retirement, another one set up an entire orchestra.

12:51.585 --> 12:53.365
We had all sorts of interesting ways

12:53.365 --> 12:56.405
of getting involved in music from this particular group.

12:56.865 --> 13:00.405
And they all said that I was passionate about music,

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but equally I really wanted to do something else

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as well than when they got back to music.

13:05.145 --> 13:06.325
And they actually, do you know what?

13:06.485 --> 13:08.805
I feel even more passionate about this than I

13:08.805 --> 13:10.045
did first time around.

13:10.905 --> 13:13.245
So those were some of our interesting findings.

13:13.425 --> 13:14.685
We need to have a better way

13:14.685 --> 13:16.965
of understanding these abandoned callings.

13:17.305 --> 13:19.685
So as I mentioned earlier on,

13:19.745 --> 13:21.405
we knew about missed callings

13:21.405 --> 13:23.285
and we knew about additional callings,

13:23.665 --> 13:26.045
but we've now added to that with this notion

13:26.045 --> 13:28.565
of a latent calling that kind of lies there.

13:28.625 --> 13:31.405
And one of, one of our participants described it as a kind

13:31.405 --> 13:33.085
of a simmering passion that kind

13:33.085 --> 13:34.925
of carries on through your life.

13:35.385 --> 13:37.725
So we now know about this and, and how that works.

13:38.585 --> 13:40.165
The second one is that we were able

13:40.165 --> 13:44.085
to identify these differences in terms of how people dealt

13:44.355 --> 13:47.405
with this latent calling through their working lives.

13:47.785 --> 13:49.845
And we came up with these three pathways

13:49.915 --> 13:52.245
that I described earlier, the,

13:52.465 --> 13:55.965
the accommodation pathway, the deferred pathway,

13:56.065 --> 13:58.845
and the emergent pathway, which suggests

13:58.845 --> 14:02.045
that there are very different ways of actually managing

14:02.715 --> 14:05.605
that notion that you are not pursuing your calling,

14:05.855 --> 14:08.205
which kind of adds a little bit of nuance to

14:08.805 --> 14:10.565
previous research on callings.

14:11.425 --> 14:15.085
So that was our, our, other contribution.

14:15.305 --> 14:17.525
And I think finally we, we challenge the idea

14:17.755 --> 14:21.085
that callings are necessarily negative experiences

14:21.315 --> 14:22.525
when they've been abandoned.

14:23.025 --> 14:25.445
So some of our, participants,

14:25.505 --> 14:27.965
in fact possibly the majority all said

14:27.965 --> 14:31.365
that they enjoyed their calling to music more as a result

14:31.385 --> 14:33.405
of not having pursued it through their lives.

14:33.555 --> 14:36.005
They would've done if they pursued it as a career.

14:36.745 --> 14:40.565
So, for example, one of our participants, he said, well,

14:40.605 --> 14:43.885
I knew someone who played, in the orchestra in one

14:43.885 --> 14:45.605
of the big musicals in London,

14:46.025 --> 14:47.165
and he played the same pieces

14:47.225 --> 14:50.765
of music ev twice a day every day for over 20

14:50.775 --> 14:51.775
Years.

14:51.805 --> 14:53.625
And he said, you know, that would've killed me.

14:54.005 --> 14:57.265
He said, whereas now I can participate in my music.

14:57.685 --> 15:01.305
Um, I've got the social aspect of that, the companionship,

15:01.375 --> 15:02.545
I've got the enjoyment.

15:03.365 --> 15:05.225
If it goes well, it goes well, that's great,

15:05.245 --> 15:06.985
but if it doesn't, it's not a disaster.

15:07.365 --> 15:11.225
So people weren't dependent on music for their income,

15:11.365 --> 15:13.825
in the same way that they would've been if they'd pursued it

15:13.825 --> 15:17.345
as a career, and consequently had a lot more agency choice

15:17.445 --> 15:20.145
and freedom about what music they did.

15:20.215 --> 15:22.945
They could learn new instruments, learn new genre.

15:23.215 --> 15:24.545
They could start from the beginning.

15:24.775 --> 15:27.105
They could, they could do it as they wanted to.

15:27.725 --> 15:29.545
And because of that, they felt

15:30.165 --> 15:32.705
no regret at not having pursued a musical career.

15:33.645 --> 15:36.305
So we asked people to look back over their lives

15:36.765 --> 15:39.425
and say, well, you know, knowing what you know now,

15:39.925 --> 15:41.625
how do you feel about this fact

15:41.625 --> 15:43.225
that you didn't pursue your calling?

15:43.325 --> 15:44.625
And they all said, well, actually,

15:45.085 --> 15:47.545
I'm really glad I didn't become a musician

15:47.615 --> 15:51.385
because I don't think that life would've been anything near

15:51.445 --> 15:53.385
as enjoyable as the life that I've had.

15:54.045 --> 15:56.145
So I think one of the things to note though,

15:56.145 --> 15:58.625
about this particular group of people is

15:58.625 --> 15:59.865
that these were all people

16:00.005 --> 16:02.305
who had sufficient resources to do this.

16:02.335 --> 16:05.705
They had health, they had time, and,

16:05.765 --> 16:07.185
and they had the ability.

16:07.845 --> 16:11.465
Um, not everyone is in that situation.

16:11.885 --> 16:15.145
Not everyone ha ha is financially in the situation

16:15.145 --> 16:17.625
to be able to pursue their calling in in their retirement.

16:17.645 --> 16:20.225
Not everyone has the, the health that they need to do that.

16:20.805 --> 16:24.305
So I think it would be fabulous if some more research could

16:24.305 --> 16:26.145
be done with other groups of people

16:26.445 --> 16:28.225
to look more into different,

16:28.255 --> 16:31.265
ways in which people experience these latent callings,

16:31.475 --> 16:33.985
maybe looking at people who have a latent calling,

16:34.125 --> 16:36.225
but who just never quite got it back off the

16:36.225 --> 16:37.425
ground again in retirement.

16:37.765 --> 16:40.745
Uh, and try and get some insight into some, some

16:40.745 --> 16:43.625
of the more nuanced bindings around that as well.

16:44.585 --> 16:47.005
But I think one of the things I've taken from this study,

16:47.385 --> 16:49.325
is that we do need to be aware

16:49.585 --> 16:51.605
of a much more fine-grained approach

16:51.705 --> 16:55.245
to understanding callings than perhaps we have done here,

16:55.245 --> 16:56.325
the two in the literature.

16:56.665 --> 16:59.725
Um, and I think also it's, it's quite a spur

16:59.825 --> 17:02.005
for research on retirement as well.

17:03.165 --> 17:05.125
Previously, we, there's been a, a literature

17:05.125 --> 17:08.565
that suggested retirement is a period of decline, a period

17:08.565 --> 17:10.525
of consumption rather than production.

17:10.865 --> 17:14.325
But actually these people were all engaging very proactively

17:14.475 --> 17:16.045
with what they were doing in their retirement.

17:16.385 --> 17:19.645
Uh, generating a new sense of self,

17:19.745 --> 17:22.405
and engaging playfully, in their calling

17:22.545 --> 17:24.645
and getting a great deal of enjoyment out of life.

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