P for Passion

When we were small kids, we were asked a particular question quite often, just to test our capacity to imagine & to think out of the box. The question was: “What do want to become when you grow up ?” It wasn't a big deal back then & most of the kids would answer it promptly saying: Pilot, Doctor, Astronaut & what not.

I personally remember saying that I wanted to be an astronaut to almost all the people who had asked the question to me. I had this natural flair for astronomy. I used to read about it at long stretches without getting bored. It was fun, very.

But when the same question's revised version is thrown at an adult's or a would-be adult's face, it is tackled in a different way. This time there is another P attached to it, P for Practicality. Practicality generally comes from our aptitude, educational background & various other key factors. It directly points at the feasibility of a career path that we have chosen to walk on. So this time, we think over it & then generate a response to the question.

I have personally noticed this difference in me & also seen it in many others. Also seen that some people know what to do with their lives(or it just appears that they know what to do with their lives) & some people have absolutely no clue. I consider myself to be the one in the no clue department. Having no clue about your career plans is sometimes helpful but mostly disastrous. Helpful because you have so many avenues to explore before you hit your favorite one. Disastrous in a sense that it takes a huge amount time to decide & mostly ends in frustration & disgust about not being able to make simple practical choices.

But amidst all this, we forget the most important part of this whole career-decision-dilemma, that part is PASSION. Many people have an inclination to do something in a particular field right from their early childhood. May it be building castles or designing things like planes & cars or maybe just drawing & painting, practical kind of hobbies. These hobbies are very critical when considering the overall development of a child's personality. 1 in every 10 of these children pursue their careers on the grounds of their long adopted hobbies. These people are more than willing to do anything to achieve their goals in their field of desire rather than fooling around the Herd Mentality. They don't care about social norms & they even don't care what others might say. They are driven by ambition & will power. As philosophical as it may sound, its quite true. These people are entrepreneurs, innovators, inventors or lastly, authoritative people in their field of study.

Now the other kind, my kind :). These are 9 out of 10 in the population who don't have a strategy for life. Who spend most of their life thinking about 'What is the meaning of life?'. They spend time in thinking about where they are going & what they are doing, & spend an awful amount of time in making decisions. Although most of them land at the places they desired, most of them land at places they never even dreamed of. Some of them find new avenues to their lives while some of them realize their mistake by being in a particular field / career & regret it. There is no catch here, its all part of the survival program, some know how to, some don't. This doesn't mean that they are no good. One of the basic features of Human Resource Management is identifying these kind of people & channelize them to do better work in their careers of interest ultimately for the benefit of the employer. Some of these not-sure-about-my-life people often excel in future when they spend considerable amount of time in knowing what they have to do. Time has no existence & meaning in some cases. People take their time to grow on a personal level & to finally reach their goal to do what they are passionate about.

Passion is found & not generated. Being clueless doesn't mean being dumb. The moment I realized this at the stroke of half past two at night, I decided to plot a career path. I didn't know yet if thats where I wanted to aim, but I wanted to shoot anyway. So I take a chair & contemplate on my career route. I think about myself 5 years from now, I dream of myself 10 years from now. Then suddenly it becomes less painful to visualize.


And I think, “Am I realizing my passion ???”