Follow your passion… an illusion?

By Chani Imbulgoda

Rumi, the Persian poet, who lived in the 13th Century, said, “Let the beauty of what you love, be what you do… Eight centuries after, I would rather say “let what you do be the beauty of you”.

The world never agrees. There are two extremes for many things that exist, be they tangible, intangible, visible or invisible. The same goes for the Passion. There are two opposite schools of thought; one says to follow the passion; the other says cultivate the passion. Which way are we to take? There are those famous personalities who followed their passion … ventured into what they dreamed of doing … and reached the height of success in life. Marc Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Richard Branson … to name a few. Citing them as examples, career counsellors have been chanting a mantra, ‘follow your passion’. They go on, “You don’t need to work a day in life if you do what you love; if you want to be successful, you have to pursue what you are most passionate about doing”. These are mantras imported from the West. We always love to embrace and enjoy imports; the younger generation is keen on following them. The other school of thought opposes the view ‘follow your passion’. They think that advocating youngsters to follow their passion in choosing the livelihood is more harmful than beneficial. Guiding the youth to follow their passion force them to figure out what is going to make them happy.

Following ones’ passion can be confusing. Imagine that everyone gets along with the same passion to be a supermodel, who will be left to become a fashion designer? Everyone loves to be fashion designers, where will be the market? One’s passion is defined by societal acceptance. Popular regularly heard professions become the passion of many, gearing and intensifying competition among colleagues and ending the younger generation disillusioned. I get a number of requests to subscribe to YouTube channels to follow the passion of our young generation. Some are passionately making videos on “how to cook a healthy diet”, how to wash your hand”, how to brush your teeth and so on, teaching us to do all that we were taught by parents as toddlers. Television channels are showing stars more than the stars in the galaxy. So, as the Career Gurus say we are following our passion.

What is Passion?

The origin of the word ‘passion’ comes from the Latin ‘Pati’ which means ‘suffer’. The English word ‘passion’ refers to a strong desire or ardor. The connection between the Latin word (pati-suffer) and the English word (‘passion’-strong desire) is found in Buddha’s word; “let go of passion to rid the suffering”. Alas, the pursuers of passion end up suffering. Buddha compares the person who embraces passion to the torch-bearer running against the wind, where his hands would be burned eventually. The person who runs carrying the torch is excited with the feeling that he carries the torch, illuminating the path, and he forgets the risk and may go blind to the danger until he suffers in pain burning the hand. Passion and suffering are the two sides of the same coin. Remember the two words, Latin and English; ‘Pati’ and ‘Ardor’. So can we let go of passion? Difficult. Life itself exists as a result of passion, the ardor, enthusiasm, the zeal that motivates people to progress in life. The lay world always needs some stimuli to be active and breath life. Letting go of passion is worth trying but difficult in practice. What we must learn is how to maneuver passion in our lives.

Passion is evolving

If we are going to navigate the passion, not vice versa, we need to understand its nature. Passion is evolving. One would not cherish the same passion throughout his/her whole life span. When I was a kid, my passion was to be a doctor. When I was a teenager I was so passionate to become a ‘house wife’. While dreaming to be a housewife, I developed a passion to be a model’, be an actress … the list goes on. Finally, I ended up taking a complete diversion, which I am passionate about today. Passion can be tempting, misguiding. It is like teenage love, perhaps you would regret the selection one day. Karl Moore, professor at McGill University, Canada, in his article in Forbes Magazine affirms that passion evolves. He draws on to real-life experience as I do. During different stages of life, human beings develop different passions. Passion is discovered within a self or while interacting with others. You often hear ‘successful’ entrepreneurs say they took a turn in their career at age of 40s or 50s or 60s, to make them what they are today. You have seen some get wedded twice or thrice and say “I just found my passion”. Passion is moving and changing. We are on the chase.

Passion is here… with you…at this moment

Scott, a professor at New York University and serial entrepreneur stresses not to follow the passion. He says that “passion comes from doing something well, not doing what you love”. If you invest time and effort and adore what you do, you would become great at it. Bruce Lee, the famous martial artist says “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” The expertise comes with practice, and if you passionately practice what you do, you can keep a mark in the world, whatever you do. Martin Luther King Junior had ones said, “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” So, passion is rewarding. Horowitz an American author declares if you poll 1,000 successful people they’ll all say that they love what they do. And so the broad conclusion of the world is that if you do what you love, then you’ll be successful, that might be true. But conversely, if you’re successful, you would naturally love what you do. The point I am bringing here is we cannot and should not let go of passion. But, inculcate passion in everything we do. Be it as simple as cleaning the house, cooking dinner, or as complicated as solving a labor issue in the office, or writing a memo to the Board of Management, do it with a passion. Deliver passion wherever you go and whatever you say.

Passion is important. It is important to drive us in life; it keeps us in vibration. But, the motto “follow your passion” is misleading. Let me put it differently; if you love what you do, you will be happier. You will be contented, you will find solace in things you do, the things you have. Think of your job, your marriage, your family… give your best to them and feel the difference. No need to follow the passion, when you have it within. What we were not taught is to value what we have and love them. We are always in search of what we don’t have at the moment … and we say we want to follow our passion. But, what if each one of us does what we do to the fullest and best, put an extra effort to add beauty to what we do. An imaginary day at work; where the cleaners have cleaned the office to shine, staff are doing the best of their jobs without wasting time or resources, meetings are effective, customers are greeted with passion… no more stress at work…created living heaven by the same lot. Passion is not a feeling to throw, but to cultivate in whatever we do.

It is easier said than done. Human lives are complicated and driven by complex and implicit values and beliefs. Changing the way society thinks overnight is difficult but not unattainable. This is an attempt to show that there are paradoxical views on “do what you love”, and I take the opposite view to the generally existing one and wish that humans would love what they do and find beauty and solace in it. 

(The writer holds a senior position in a state University and has international experience and exposure. He also has an MBA from Postgraduate Institute of Management (PIM), Sri Lanka and currently reading for her PhD in Quality Assurance in the Higher Education Sector at PIM. She can be reached at cv5imbulgoda@gmail.com)