Sunday, July 15, 2012

A Practical Guide to Pursing your Passion?


How to do what you Love:


Source:http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html#f1n


Chancing upon this article from brickpickings.org I believe, I thought that this is one of the most balanced article on how to do what you love.  It is not those irrationally passionate call to do what you like, but systematically give you the upper and lower boundaries of what is actually acceptable for you to do. 


What do you mean by something you love to do?

Doing what you love does not mean doing what you love to do most this second of time. Afterall, sex and bumming on the beach can be more enjoyable than many other things. 

The fact though unproductive pleasures do pall out.  If you want to stay happy, you have to produce something. 

But doing what you love do mean that you do not regard time at work as pain that you must endure to earn a reward, and there is not concept of the spare time at work - cause you are not not passing time.  You are serving a cause you want to, and using skills that you enjoy. 

As frivolous and vain that I am, I do want to acknowledge my deeper desire to be compared against other people, and hence something that you love to do may not only be:

- be something that you enjoy only such as art or design but, 
- something else that can be pretty cool

and some pursuits like like skateboarding are pretty cool, for a while at least. Things  that would make your friends say wow - litmus test of something that is cool and you may enjoy.

To produce, to work is key:

Reading is not work. Stop using it as an excuse of using your time productively. So is sharing multiple links on facebook.

Always produce - the best way to make sure that you are not actually hiding behind a dream of opening a cafe or of writing a book.

In fact, unlike playing a computer game where you can restart if you don't like the state of prepareness that you are in or in school where the exams can only proceed after you have covered all the materials, you often have to operate on
ridiculously incomplete information.



Hence producing is important, just do and learn. And decide if you really like it.


Doing what you love vs your family concerns:


And I love it how he brings it the evolutionary risks and benefits to explain why our family may not be so keen for us to pursue our passions:




"All parents tend to be more conservative for their kids than they would for themselves, simply because, as parents, they share risks more than rewards. If your eight year old son decides to climb a tall tree, or your teenage daughter decides to date the local bad boy, you won't get a share in the excitement, but if your son falls, or your daughter gets pregnant, you'll have to deal with the consequences."



Ultimate test of doing what you love:


The ultimate test of if people do what they love is that they are willing to do it for free - even take another job to make a living to do it.

And yet surprisingly, at least as of 2012, public speaking where I craft a story from what I read is something that I love to do for free! But that is a skill, and it is not a cause/value that I want to serve.


There is this digestion, synthesis that goes beyond just reading and sharing. It is true assimilation of what you have learnt/read.


And yet surprisingly, at least as of 2012, public speaking where I craft a story from what I read is something that I love to do for free! But that is a skill, and it is not a cause/value that I want to serve.

In fact, if you admit to yourself that you're discontented, you're a step ahead of most people, who are still in denial.


Doing what you love makes work a breeze, but finding work you love does usually require discipline.



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