What Does Doing What Drives You Mean?
While growing up we have a lot new experiences. These experiences are meant to teach us things which later become an essential requisite of our lives. Do we learn the right things always? Are the right lessons derived from each failure that we come across? Today, I’m here to focus on one such topic which often leads to a lot of confusion.
Passion
What is our passion? The thing which drives us from within, no matter what is happening in the world around us. You may listen to a lot of talks, shows, & even read a lot of books (if your like me then you’ll probably be doing all three at once) which tell you to follow your heart & passion in order to be successful in life. When we process all this information and later try incorporating the same into our lives by attempting to seek out our passion, we face criticism. Especially, if what we plan to pursue isn’t good monetarily & if it’s something creative like art, dance or becoming a writer, etc. We are counselled into being more rational and are also told not to get carried away with all these messages which we come across through multiple media platforms. This is when we are faced with two dilemmas which haunt us for the rest of our lives. They are :
- Follow your passion and be a failure
- Get the job you hate but be a success in the eyes of the world.
We are often manipulated toward the second one because at least that way we are establishing ourselves economically and socially. But what about the mental degeneration that takes place? The growing frustration which often ends up in health issues and depression. In spite of our achievements, we are still unsatisfied as well as unhappy with our lives. Why? Makes the whole exercise of giving up your passion completely pointless, doesn’t it? Then the scenario where we follow our passion relentlessly but we aren’t as successful as we would have liked to be and that again leads to depression and dissatisfaction with life. How does one decide what to do if both the choices available have the same outcome? Except for the materialistic accomplishments and the honing of our skills we are yet the same people.
There is a major flaw in our thought process which keeps us from our true potential.
We see ourselves as talented only in a specific field. We are ourselves responsible for limiting our minds to just one particular goal when we are capable of achieving much more. This tunnel thought process is dangerous and doesn’t impact positively except for in certain cases. Who said that it’s compulsory that we have to be passionate about only one thing? We can make ourselves capable of doing many things by widening our horizons & by our willingness to learn new things. We can all be multi-potentialed if we set our minds to it. It is possible to choose what drives you instead of having to search for your one true passion. That is when we will all truly being doing the things which drive us. This is what the idea of following your passion should be like.
Flexible thinking which has no limits and can flex it’s muscles to accommodate any talent or task that we assign to it. This is what will enable us to do what drives us. And without rigid thought processes about our inherent talents & comfort zones we’ll see a growing majority of people whom as “Emilie Wapnick” would call them coming into the picture. She calls them multi-potentialites. It’s always better to have people who can accommodate themselves into any kind of a professional role with ease without wasting time on theoretic knowledge & instead taking action. This is the kind of future that I have envisioned for our progress. We cannot let our surrounding tamper with the beauty & the functioning of our thoughts and help them to gag our creativity & capability. Doing what drives us is simply choosing to be passionate about all what we choose to do and not just choosing your passion from the avenues available.
-Babar Mir
