And as I was sitting in the second row of my class, I could hear those words for the nth time in my life “you must know what you are passionate about and follow it, then you will not have to work a single day”. Every time I hear this, I feel like asking the professor, whether it really was his passion to come here and talk to us about it or before that, to be a professor at all.
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So what is it about the most hyped word on earth? What does it have that drives millions on a journey inside their hearts only to find themselves lost, grappling with the facts or as they say reality?
Ever since we begin to feel the world around us, sooner or later, we develop a fancy for some things or may be the ‘ONE' thing depending on how our genes and our environment react. And life in that very moment acquires a different meaning.
But life by then already has so many meanings. Like it means to grow up and stand on your feet. It means to earn for yourself. It means to at least maintain the socio-economic level you have inherited. It means to make a career, and then make an investment plan and then a retirement plan. It means to make sense to the same world around you, who is too busy to be bothered by whatever you do. And at the end of the day, it means to be happy.
If only you try to add a little of the word passion to the above blend, the result is a concoction which not many can take it down their throat. It is not as difficult to prepare as it is to drink. You live day and night with it, most of the time not knowing what to do with it. In every sip your heart and mind are at a tug of war. There’s a protracted calculation of risk and return.
They say it requires a self belief measuring the sky, for the onslaught of ‘practical’ alternatives is heavy. But self belief minus opportunity is a bane (oh yes! they do say create your own opportunities!). Without it you are like a bonded labor. Imprisoned by your own belief; going on with the vagaries of life. You have committed deep inside to it and so you struggle with it each day. You face the world each day with suggestions. You face yourself each day with questions.
And sometimes the weird question “Why do I have this passion? Had I been freer without it? Are those around happy without it? ”
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Amidst all this, a faculty for leadership tells me one day to be realistic. And I being to wonder again … how real can a reality get? Is her reality different from mine? Whose reality is more conditioned by the world ??
