I was in a conversation with a few friends recently that centered around an issue one of them is having concerning their professional “drift.” She is young and talented but hasn’t figured out what her calling is or what her next professional move will be. My quick response to her was find out what you are passionate about and do that. However, another friend quickly interrupted saying that he thought that was shit because the majority of people are in a similar situation and although that “follow your passion” is often repeated to us not everyone can do it or its instruction is too vague. After thinking about it, I think he is wrong and here is why…
We are young. Life is beautiful (thanks to whatever higher power I can say that). And we are humans with hearts that crave something more substantial than money in a bank account. And even if we are not conscious of it, there is a pull on us to be a part of something bigger than who we are individually. I think that my friend’s comment about how it is shit to be told to follow your passion completely skips over that. It ignores the need we have to create meaning in our lives.
And there is a sense of urgency with that too, with living well and finding our purpose and creating meaning. Time, as many of us are aware of, slips away with surprisingly fast speed and it probably wouldn’t be such a big deal if we had a lot more of it to live. However, time is limited, we grow older every day, happiness is important to us, and spending more days genuinely happy instead of being bored or angry or sad or whatever is a priority. Our lives are a journey in which we spend much of it sleeping and much of it working and some of it playing. So, if you are going to spend much of your precious time on this Earth working then you ought to do something that helps contribute to a deeper sense of meaning for you and consequently, a more genuine state of happiness.
And don’t be fooled! Doing things you don’t like doing wears on you, little by little, and those little bits, after many years, adds up to the realization that you have wasted your time and its time you will never get back. And nobody ever complains about time they spent with family, or volunteering, or working on a project of their interest. So, there is something to be noticed there. The connection between genuineness, humanness, work, meaning and living well. Steve Jobs once said that he would ask himself in the mirror if what he did during the day or if what he was going to do during the day is something that he would want to be doing on the last day of his life. And if he found himself saying “no” too many days in a row he would change what he was doing, and we ought to as well, and there is no reason we shouldn’t.
There is something funny and erroneous, and maybe my friend with the finding-passion-advice-is-shit comment is plagued by the same thing, most people seem to think that doing something you love for work is somehow limited to those very few, fortunate people. And that, I think is shit. Many people say, including my friend in professional drift, that they just don’t know what they are passionate about or how it could turn into a job. And my advice to you is to make time to figure that out because your fruitful, genuine life depends on it. And don’t be afraid to do so and don’t pay attention to people who say it is shit or that it isn’t possible because it will only hold you back. If life affords you the option to do so, you ought to take it.
Listen…
If you have a heart that can feel, then you have the compass you need to help you find your way, and if you have a mind that can think, then you have what you need to make that possible. If you choose to, it will change your life for the better and if you choose not to, you let the miracle of life slip away with the time.