The logical flow of Solomon’s theme continues in this section as we find the girl yearning to be with her creative mentor and guide, this time cast as a shepherd in a practical work environment -- but she is confused and doesn’t know where to find him. Tell me, she pleads, you whom my soul loves, where you pasture your flock, where you make it lie down at noon!

Follow the Tracks
Don’t you know? replies the lover — Are re you still confused? Some people may easily and early on find the right direction for their lives, but many, as typified by the girl, do not, and so remain confused as to their purpose in life. The advice Solomon then offers her , and them, is to follow in the tracks of the flocks, faint tracks which can lead them in the direction of their vocation.

The feet of the flock as they tread the grass, flatten it, making impressions that soon form a visible track – and the message may be to consider experiences that have made positive impressions on our past lives, and perhaps begun to define a direction for the future, such as praise from other people for a job well done, the satisfaction of problems successfully solved, exposure to enjoyable subjects that stirred our interest, a skill that sets us apart, something we find easy that others find difficult, and occupation areas to which we feel drawn.

A Journey into Creativity
Creativity is not concerned solely with art, music and literature, but also and probably more importantly with every aspect of the way we live and work, with business, science, education and technology -- and if your interest lies in a practical field, as typified by the shepherd out in the fields tending his sheep, then you may find yourself quite ill equipped to make a creative contribution with your present limited knowledge, skills and experience.

As a result you may have to make a journey into creativity, like the girl, starting from where you are now, with the practicalities of your present life, and following the footsteps of those who went before -- the path of practical education and experience traditionally followed by successful individuals, like the office boy who starts out making the tea and ends up as the managing director.

Needs
A shepherd spends his days vigilantly caring for the needs of his flock, seeing every sheep as an individual, and in the Bible, sheep act as a metaphor for people -- so another message may be to start looking, obsessively looking, for unfulfilled needs of people, real needs that if attended to can make a creative improvement in the quality of life of those around you.
This has been the attitude of many successful people, such as Buckminster Fuller, engineering genius and architect, who re-ordered his life following a bout of suicidal depression, saying: "What does my experience tell me needs to be attended to, which if attended to completely will advantage to all humanity?"

The Eternal Secret of Wealth
Servicing the needs of people is in fact an eternal secret of wealth, which is why, in "Hidden Power", James van Fleet says that if your goal is to make money, then your success will be measured by the amount of service that you give to others – and why Andrew Carnegie, who rose from humble origins as a Scottish immigrant boy in America over a century ago to become a billionaire, said: "No man can become rich himself unless he enriches others in so doing".

What kinds of needs are you personally good at fulfilling, then? What kind of function are you good at performing? In which direction do your interests, experience and abilities lead you?

Setting Goals
Although writers of inspirational books stress the importance of setting goals to work towards, many people cannot set goals because they simply do not know what they really want out of life -- beyond simply wishing they had more money, a bigger house and car, and more holidays.

Solomon’s contrarian advice to them would seem to be to search instead for some way to make a positive contribution to society and improve the quality of people’s lives – as the great inventors have done so successfully.

Start Small
The invitation to the girl to pasture her kids or lambs by the shepherds’ tents, may also be wise advice for us to start small, and go forward one step at a time. Even the great artists had to learn, starting out as apprentices, mixing paint and making brushes, then being allowed to add a few brush strokes to the work in progress of the master. So how can you start small in your life? What specific problems need solving in your work, your home, your marriage – what creative improvements can you begin to make?

In their creativity course for business leaders at Stanford University, Rochelle and Myers offer the same advice – such as learning to ask of lots of simple questions about a subject that interests you, as when boy meets girl and the desire develops to know more about each other. This approach, they suggest, can be developed in mundane matters such as finding a more efficient way to do the washing up, drive to work, or improving your conversational skills.

An Encyclopaedia Britannica article described the modest beginnings of William Shakespeare’s glittering writing career as follows: "Ultimately, of course, he drifted to London and the theatre, where, according to the stage tradition, he found employment in a menial capacity, perhaps even as a holder of horses at the doors, before he was admitted into a company as an actor and so found his way to his true vocation as a writer of plays."