In a world chasing passion,
Are you not sure what your passion is?
I met my childhood best friend at the school bus stop. My family had just moved to a new neighborhood, I was dressed in my school uniform, waiting for the bus to arrive, when this chubby girl with two long pigtails came up to me and introduced herself. “Hi, I’m Sonia. I am going to be a doctor when I grow up.” I was impressed, even at 9 years old. I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up.
I still don’t.
We are told to follow our passion. But what if we don’t know what we are passionate about?
I did not have any specific passion when I was growing up except for reading books. I could read anything and everything for hours on end. It is not easy, however, to make a living just by reading books. So where do you start the process of discovering your passion?
I found my interests in life by the process of doing. At A levels, I chose the humanities, as English and History were the only subjects I could bear to study. A further process of elimination led me to history at Bachelors level, and then to study law. My parents were doubtful as to whether I understood how much hard work real life requires, especially in a career as rigorous as the practice of law. So they told me to prove that I was serious. I started working part time at a law firm while taking law classes. Up to this point, my life had been unthinking progress: go to school, go to university, find a subject to pursue a profession in life. At the crossroads of moving from the life of a student to being a practicing lawyer, I was faced with a question. “Do I have what it takes to make a successful life?”
I didn’t know if I could.
However, running between law school and my part time job at the law firm, I found that doing the work led to the passion I felt for law. I did not mind working late into the night and starting early the next day, month after month. I found that, as hard as it was, I did not want to quit the practice of law. I wouldn’t use the phrase ‘enjoying the practice’, as it was definitely not enjoyable. I was continuously reminded by my senior colleagues that it was a wonder that I had graduated at all. It was a difficult situation, but the work itself imbued me with purpose. I found that any limitation I felt around work was self-imposed. I found that I could keep the promises I made to myself.
I worked in law for over 8 years, until life brought me to another crossroad. At the suggestion of a friend, I went for a job interview at an insurance company. I knew nothing about insurance. I am still not sure why I went for the interview. Perhaps out of curiosity. But the interviewers were a persuasive bunch of people. I found myself working in the field of insurance. A friend of mine joked that it was a wonder: I had managed to combine two of the most boring professions!
I was intrigued though. I was again out of my comfort zone as working in the insurance sector required a different set of skills to being a lawyer. It took work to get to a point where I became comfortable. What I learnt is that outside of the preconceived labels, and whether it’s the law or insurance, it’s the focus of work and understanding its intricacies that kept me engaged.
Even as I worked as an insurance broker, I remembered something a lawyer mentor of mine had told me at the firm. “Do you want to be a thinking lawyer or a non-thinking lawyer?” I thought it was a trick question. I replied that I thought all lawyers were thinking people. My mentor smiled and said, “You’d be surprised”. It took me many years to understand what he was telling me.
I found that you must decide whether you are a thinking person, engaged in your work, or someone who sleepwalks through it. There is no right or wrong career, you need to choose the attitude you’ll have at work. A couple of months back I wrote a story about a New York bagel maker who I think is tremendously inspiring. He had found himself in a difficult situation and working as a bagel maker is the only work he could find. Through sheer grit and hard work, he has taken what some would think as unassuming work, and turned it into an art, to a point where he is considered as one of the finest bagel makers in New York.
You can find your passion by choosing to do your work right. You can find your passion, as I did, by evoking your own energy in the work that you do. Passion follows from the intent you bring to your work.