There’s a movie out that tells about a years-ago socialite who fancied herself to be a singer.

Apparently she had a terrible voice, but her husband bought off the critics and kept her “career” going a good long while.

Aside from cringing at the thought of being duped into attending such a performance, I can’t help but wonder what her talents truly were, and what God had hoped she would do with them.

For some time, in various ways, our society has been promoting the idea that we can be whatever and whoever we want to be. Anyone should be able to look around and figure out that’s not exactly true.

Years ago, I met a bishop from a Wisconsin diocese when he gave a retreat. He shared that his childhood dream had been to play for the Packers — which was not realistic based on his physical size. We can figure that God had other, arguably better, plans for that future bishop when He designed and created him to not be the size of a football player.

Ditto the younger son of a famous actor who does not seem to possess the natural artistic talents of his father and older brother. Given this young man’s surroundings, we can only hope and pray that he can discover where he will shine and contribute to the world in ways his famous relatives cannot.

Of course, it is important to stretch ourselves and not just wilt at the first sign of difficulty as we pursue our dreams. But a good grasp of reality helps with, um, the reality. And the assistance provided by knowledge of our Maker’s dreams for us can’t be overestimated.

While there are a lucky few who know from a young age what they want to do and their talents, health and means also point to that same goal, not many of us experience such an easy flow into a satisfying and meaningful life.

Most of us are going to struggle. We’re going to be pushed around by our own passions and by the world’s demands. For young people especially, but for all ages really, we can pray that God will put the right people in our paths and guide the circumstances that influence our life and work decisions. We also should pray for the grace to loosen our grip on our own designs and discern what God would prefer we do with our lives from this point on.

Few of us adults can say that we have no regrets with the directions we took in our early years. But we should not conclude that those early decisions mean that our entire lives are cemented forever into a place that God cannot renew. Even if we are being held in place by the circumstances surrounding us, God can come up with new ideas for us to serve Him where we are.

It can help to remember that God’s specialty is to bring good out of bad — once we let Him call the shots. If our initial life or career choice was not what God would have chosen for us, we can turn ourselves over to Him now and He can do great things with us.

So we should not panic if a particular regret keeps bugging us. We can’t know for certain that we made a “second tier” choice if we, for example, chose to marry rather than pursue religious life — or vice versa. The Holy Spirit won’t niggle us with what-could-have-been. We do that to ourselves, or evil itself will tempt us to hang on to such second-guessing instead of moving along with the chosen vocation and the work before us.

The Holy Spirit rolls with where we are. Even if we once allowed societal evils — such as drugs or immoral behaviors — into our lives, the Holy Spirit can improve things from this point on. We likely have friends and acquaintances who can testify with personal experience how well God can work in a life that has been all but destroyed.

Our faith gives us a great advantage over the socialite of the movie. She and her husband apparently spent their lives in pursuit of goals that did not honor their God-given skills and talents.

With God’s gifts and direction, we can be the man or woman we were created to be.