Chapter Five

Pursue Your Passion

All human beings are passionate about certain things that are very close to their hearts. Some love singing songs, some love dancing, some love authoring books and some love doing things differently and so on. Passion is what drives people to move forward with lots of energy and enthusiasm. Passion is like a burning desire lying hidden within people and it forces them to put any amount of effort and achieve what they want in this world.

Passion at the Workplace

When you work with passion, you will deliver amazing results. When you work with passion, you will not know how you spent your entire day at the workplace. In fact, when you do what you love to do, you will not feel that you are working. However, some people are not passionate about their job; they find it troublesome to work and get easily stressed out. There are two areas where people should not compromise—marriage and work. You should marry a spouse of your choice and choose a career of your choice. As you spend most of your time at the workplace, if the work is not interesting and challenging, you will feel dejected. The rest of the time is spent with your spouse. If your spouse does not understand you and get along with you, then the family life will be unpleasant. Therefore, people should pursue a passionate career and find a loving spouse who will make their lives more meaningful. People who work with passion deliver better results in the long run than people who pursue their careers for the sake of money. The noted author and speaker, Wayne Dyer, rightly remarked, ‘When I chased after money, I never had enough.’ He added that when he derived a sense of purpose in his life and ‘focused on giving … then I was prosperous’.

Passion and Invention

If you have a passion for architecture, you will be thinking about new concepts and ideas. If you are interested in technology, you will be interested in gaining more knowledge in technology. At some point of time, you may even create your own technology. If you have a passion for music, you will listen to it everyday. Sometimes, you may like to remix songs and make something new out of it. If you have a passion for writing, you will try to create a story, anecdote or an article depending on your creativity and imagination. If you are passionate about art, you will bring out the best in it by drawing. In this way, everyone can invent something if they work with passion in their chosen areas.

Passion Among the Youth

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, ‘Passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all things alive and significant’. The youth have a passion for many things. A few are able to achieve it while others are not. If you have a passion in specific areas, you must express this to your parents. Here is the story of Julie who had a passion for animation:

When Julie expressed to her parents her passion for animation, they did not appreciate it. She completed her graduation under parental pressure. While pursuing her graduation, she came in contact with Ronnie who became her friend. He was also interested in animation, but his parents also did not appreciate his passion. Whenever they had some free time, they talked about animation and expressed their idea of opening an animation institute. After successful completion of their graduation they were employed. However, even at this stage of their lives, during their leisure time they always made time to pursue their passion for animation. This shows how deeply they felt for this specialization. They learnt about animation and developed new tools and techniques. Once they had trained themselves in animation sufficiently, they finally floated their animation company. Things gradually looked up. Subsequently, their parents realized their folly of not encouraging their children to pursue their passion for animation. It is obvious from this story that once you are passionate, you can achieve anything in this world. In addition, research shows that people excel at their work and experience success when they pursue their passions.

Passion: The Key to Leadership

The renowned leaders of this world have not evolved overnight. They all became great as they worked hard and with passion. They were also smart from their childhood onwards. They basically had interests in a few things. Then they chose the one thing that touched their hearts the most and worked all the way upward during their lives. Since their focus was on one thing, over a period of time they excelled as leaders in their domains. When you look at business leaders like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Lakshmi Niwas Mittal, it is obvious that they all pursued their passions and ultimately excelled as corporate czars. Terri Guillemets rightly said, ‘Chase down your passion like it’s the last bus of the night’. To conclude, never compromise with your passion as there is only one life to achieve whatever you want.