Day 80: Our Personal Sources of Energy by Marnix van Holland — a participant’s reflection: the quest for my ‘passion’
by Vera Vrijmoeth, Eindhoven, the Netherlands, 22 October 2017
In May 2017, Ed Sheeran was on College Tour, a Dutch television show where university students get to ask high-profile guests questions. As a guest on the show, Ed Sheeran encouraged students to think big: “You can achieve literally anything, if you work hard enough in life”. This was followed by a remark along the lines of: The only thing you need to do is to fully focus on this one single thing and not have a back-up plan. Seems easy: just find your passion and work hard for it. However, figuring out your passion turned out to be easier said than done.
A few weeks before launching this blog, I wrote about how I was feeling stuck in a limbo between ending university life and figuring out the next step. I lacked the motivation to get out there and do stuff, and was feeling somewhat bored, which is quite an unusual state for me. But I now see the use of it. I have always believed that through boredom one automatically starts projects which lie close to heart. And indeed… writing about my state of boredom helped me push myself to do concrete things that would bring me closer to the next step, and hopefully also to my end goal: finding my ‘passion’.
First, I launched this blog together with Leah. I also decided to volunteer during the Dutch Design Week (DDW) in Eindhoven. Lastly, I decided to pick up the clarinet again, which I played 9 years before I started university. All these tasks were, or still are, fun — which was my only criteria — and potential ways to meet new and inspiring people. However, they didn’t necessarily directly bring me closer to figuring out my passion.
The workshop
Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised when, during my week helping out at the Dutch Design Week, an orange folder* caught my eye. It read: Our personal sources of energy: the personal ‘why?’ of doing things, a workshop by Marnix van Holland**. That sounded quite interesting! It started at 14.00. It was 13.45 now. In other words, I was a 15-minutes-bike-ride away from potentially discovering the ‘why’ of my existence. Before I knew it, I was on my way.
Contrary to my expectations, I didn’t enter a big lecture hall. Instead, it was a small room with a handful of diverse people. Some crayons, markers and papers were spread across the table.
10 minutes later, a drawing summarized all my passions: coming up with impactful ideas, spreading these ideas, and expressing them through arts (photography, painting, collage) and writing (books, journalism, academics). My goal with all of this is to ‘have a positive impact’ or more boldly, maybe naively, put: to make the world a better place.
During the first round of the workshop I expressed how hard it is for me to know where to start. How could I decide on what to do next? Art school? An academic master’s degree? In which field should I search for an internship? Journalism, design, or perhaps an internship abroad that gives me an international experience?
During the second round we explained our drawings. An Italian woman sitting opposite me simply said, “I like when people cook for me”. Branley***, a man from Guatemala, expressed how he loved every aspect of fire: being around fire, its spiritual powers and putting things on fire. Wow… that is actually pretty refreshing, I could hear myself think.
Without thinking about it explicitly, I had always assumed that there was one passion that was ‘right’ to follow, and that everyone has an this one, individual passion. My idea of a passion (as well as ambition) was connected to my job and future career.
In the discussion, the workshop leader Van Holland challenged the idea of a passion that is connected to your job. To him, the idea that your passion should be incorporated in your job is not always realistic. In his view, passions are not static, but rather evolve over time. Also, they are not per se individual, but exist in connection to others: “Passion is an energy that moves something in you: an opportunity to connect and feel others’ energy”.
Van Holland’s potential distinction between passion and work reminded me of the Japanese concept of ikigai. Ikigai could be translated as ‘the reason for being’ or ‘what gets you up in the morning’. One’s ikigai is made up of the following four dimensions: ‘what you love’, ‘what the world needs’, ‘what you can get paid for’, and ‘what you are good at’ in your life. One could combine these four dimensions potentially, but not exclusively, in a job.
Moreover, Van Holland indirectly challenged the narrative used by ‘successful’ people to explain their accomplishments. This narrative often goes along the lines of: “I love playing the piano so I worked hard and practised every day for 10 hours and managed to get into a top conservatory. A couple years later I was considered to be among the best classical pianists internationally”.
The nuance of such stories, that this person might have also liked politics, arts, physics, or cooking, and had to make the difficult decision not to go to university or cooking school, is often not mentioned. Nor is the doubt and the insecurities that come with making such decisions. Difficult decisions like becoming a professional classical pianist are never clear-cut but are portrayed as such afterwards.
So, where did all these perspectives leave me after the workshop? One great insight I got is that in Western society it is common to go along with the American-dream-like-narrative of having one passion, ‘following your dream’, working hard and becoming successful. Consequently, people who fail to turn their passion into their profession are seen as being too afraid to take the risk or as lazy, having not worked hard enough.
But, this is a simplistic view. Some people will find ‘a passion’ or pretend to have found one. However, many people have reasons to do the job they do regardless of whether it is a ‘passion’. There is no such thing as a single, and static passion of an individual or a ‘right’ decision. Instead, one’s passions might change over time. Also, you might be able to express certain passions in your personal rather than in your professional life.
These new insights provided me with counterweight to the crushing societal pressure that generation-Y adolescents can feel when having to make decisions regarding their future. Moreover, it has allowed me to have ‘multiple passions’, which I absolutely love as a concept!
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*This workshop was organised by A 100 Days of Learning : https://medium.com/100-days-of-learning
**a Global Office Programme Development Manager at Hivos — an NGO in the field of development : https://hivos.org/contact/marnix-van-holland
***Branley López is a fellow at Age of Wonderland: http://ageofwonderland.nl/fellows/2016/branly-lopez
**** World Economic Forum (2017). Retrieved from : https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/08/is-this-japanese-concept-the-secret-to-a-long-life/
Pictures Vera Vrijmoeth
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About 100 Days of Learning
Age of Wonderland 2017 presents 100 DAYS OF LEARNING, a global learning event to exchange valuable life experiences with peers. Doers and thinkers from around the world — innovators, scientists, engineers, artists, designers, social entrepreneurs — are invited to share their personal stories, ideas, and practice, not to be found in textbooks. Aim is to rediscover knowledge, challenge beliefs, and exchange life lessons with others. To make the world a better place, we need to embrace change on an individual level, and inspire others to do the same.
