When I was still an innocent kid, what I cared the most is just how to get the first rank in the class. I didn’t care too much about another kind of achievements and now I never understand why, I regret about this. As the time goes by, I start to realize that living a life like that is a waste of time. And as I grow up, until now, I keep on searching the so called ‘passion’ of mine and the meaning of the word itself.
According to my Oxford Learner’s Pocket Dictionary, passion is (1) strong feeling, esp of love, hate or anger; (2) very strong sexual love. According to my observation on my circumstances, and on myself too actually, I have my own definitions about passion.
(1) Passion is often misinterpreted as a justification. A justification not to do what we have to do. Sometimes people say it’s not their passion when they find something hard to do. I’ve learned that actually, it’s not always true. Ask yourself again, is it true that it’s hard because it’s really not your passion? Or you’re just too lazy to work hard? Or maybe you’re just being lack of gratitude for what you got? Here I take my own case as an example, a case about not making justification as a reason for me to give up.
For a half of one year, I studied in shs I don’t feel really good at. I don’t know, I’m just not that into it, not as much as most of my friends. I don’t see any interesting thing about oil and gas processing as they do, I feel quite intimidated when I see chemical reaction and busy wondering how is that hell reaction even found instead, I don’t have a good sense in carbon, and so on. I once thought that I didn’t belong there, but giving up is simply stupid. That shs was the way I had chosen for myself, so the only way out is trying to finish it as well as I could. I never thought of any other better place for me. I couldn’t guarantee myself that I wouldn’t complain and would feel better if I was in other major, so… I just had to keep going. No, I’m not saying that we just have to let ourselves flow wherever the river takes us. But if you’re busy daydreaming about flying while you’re in the middle of wild current, you may drowned. You better keep moving, swimming as fast as you can to the calm ocean where you can start to think how to fly.
(2) Point (1) is actually evolved from another concept: some people may think that living their passion means they do not have to do hard work. A common misconception. Even for myself, at first. What make a pianist great is of course his/her hard work, not merely his/her intention to play piano. So, it’s the same. Whether you follow your passion or not, to be great, you have to work hard. One of my teacher said: “Heart can never be tired, while brain can.” Then based on that, what makes the hard work (on following passion or not) different is only which part that works harder: your heart or your brain.
My teacher said that we should do what we like, just focus on that, then we’ll be great. That’s true, for ideal condition. But unfortunately, just like the same teacher said: “Ideal things is only available in heaven.” And now I’m not living in heaven. Life is never as simple as that. Even though I try to do what I like, my brain sometimes interferes with my focus. Sometimes my brain gains information too much, receives too many perspectives, cares too much about what people will say, forces me to compare my goals with society standards, then finally it distracts me from the path I’ve chosen. I’m lost in my own thoughts, over and over again. And that’s… tiring.
This is somewhat contradictive. Heart can never be tired, but apparently heart can never work alone. There’s always brain which simultaneously work with it, either constructively or destructively. And heart is just like a magnetic compass, which I need so bad to lead me back to the right path. But then again, although I hold it in my hand, there’s always brain which somehow has this kind of strong magnetic field. So strong that it often disrupts the needle, giving false reading of direction I’m heading to.
The point is still the same: hard work. Getting yourself back to the right direction is more than just relying on your compass. Maybe you should try to read direction from constellation…
(3) Passion is not always correlated with achievement. I mean, I often ask myself, what am I doing while some people get various recognition in their life? Where have I been? I found out that some of my friends think that way too. What makes it so frustrating is that it’s like we’re all been standardized. They say everyone is unique. They say everyone do have the right to choose what they really want to do as their passion told to. But, some people are appreciated since their passion passes the society standard, while some people may not even be recognized for their uncommon passion. Then, unique somehow lose its charm. Unique is not unique anymore. Is it fair to compare two different passion or talent? Is it fair to kill the uniqueness?
No, of course it’s not fair. Just like Albert Einstein said: “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” So who is responsible for this unfairness? It’s not society that judges you, not even your family who demands perfection from you, no one but your own mind. My own mind. I mean, what people say shouldn’t be a big deal, because actually what’s matter is how do we respond to it. How come it’s so hard not to let our mind be controlled by unfair judgment, either from around us or especially from ourselves? Well maybe it’s because we often correlated passion with achievement. It may have a correlation, but not always. Someone told me many times that the most important thing about passion is it makes me happy. Ya, we got to keep in mind that passion is principally something that makes us happy. If it also makes you a good achiever, it’s a bonus. Remember, not everyone can get bonus, because if they can, then it’s not bonus anymore. So… here, hard work still counts. Those who get bonus is usually those who work harder, or work the hardest (luck factor being ignored).
***
In the end I conclude that for me, maybe for some of you too, life is nothing but a struggle. Whether it is for my (still vague) passion or for compensating my unreachable passion, it is a struggle. So…
Do we really have to live our life according to our passion?
Living our passion or not, we have to work hard anyway. Just choose which hard work that more worth it because everybody has their own purpose of life, either to satisfy yourself or to satisfy others.
Is it true that we can’t compare each other because we all are really unique and have our own talents?
Yes, as long as you don’t tend to correlate passion and achievement, this is valid.
Shall we be conventional?
Go back to the first question.
Lucky you who realize your passion early and know exactly how to live it right. For those who feel a little late like me, and still have a lot of question in mind, let’s keep moving forward and try to find a way. Let’s just work hard, try to forget the justification and competition. Let’s be grateful for what we got. Let’s just compete with ourselves, defeat the destructive side of us and don’t let it dominate us too long. Let’s be… better.
Last, let our mistake for being late or being confused be only ours. Learn from it, turn it into a lesson, and make it as a guideline for us to give a better education about recognizing passion to our children in the future ☺.
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