Job Vs Passion Vs Practicality

Job vs Passion have been discussed in detail for a very long time, but still new perspectives have been popping up every now and then.  To add more flavor to this discussion, I have added in "Practicality ," which I personally feel is the determining factor in the Job vs Passion discussion.  I have seen people asking the young ones at home, What do you want to become when you grow up?  I hope we all have been asked the same question.  Many of us would have answered engineer,  doctor and lot of other famous professions while we were still scribbling  crayons or playing with clay and toys.  When we became teens, some of us started exploring the love for arts we had inside and wished that we become singers, musicians, artists, chefs, sports persons, writers, poets and more (I know there is very BIG list).  What I am trying to say here is that lot of us have had passion towards the arts side - but still resisted it and moved on with life.  One of the reasons why passions step back in life is because of the background.  I  have seen people labeling passion as hobbies (personal experience here).  People at home always say hobbies are good, but when hobbies start to transform into something big like passion we could hear something like this - "My son/daughter, I seriously think that it is time to spend more time on your studies and career."

The entire blame cannot be put on the parents or other influencers in life.  As people grow up they start to think more about career than passion which initiates the burial process of one's passion.  I strongly  believe passion never dies until you kill it (others cannot kill it).  I am convinced that one needs a lot of courage to pursue their passion than a regular day job.  To worsen things more, after getting married and having a child , the burial process of passion accelerates - but still not dead.

I have seen people complain that they are not able to pursue their passion because of their job and constantly blame their jobs.  This is not true as they have voluntarily pushed back their passions during education  itself.  I mean do not blame your job, you have started the process early during your education, then why blame your job? that was the time when they started thinking about career over passion.  Nowadays, so many students pursue engineering and other professional courses rather than arts and science degrees.  I doubt that those pursuing engineering and other professional courses are passionate about their field of study - I am very confident they aren't.  I have met a lot of engineers and have found only a few very passionate about their specific field of study.

I have talked in detail to a lot of my friends regarding why we have pushed aside passions back (some still call it as a serious hobby).  Each one of them came up with a very complicated long story which can be  represented by a single term "practicality."  They consider these long stories (practicality) to be an excuse to put back their passions.  They all forget the fact that this practicality is the key to roll back your passion and give life to it.  Making small changes to the hectic schedule and there you can balance your passion with work.  This post is not going to be about how to be passionate on your work.  That is a very researched subject and as I always Google is our best friend and you can find a lot on that there.

The big question comes now.  Is it easy to pursue your passion while you work? I want to be very honest here, not at all easy.  Next question from the married ones, do you think it is worth to spend your free time off work on passion than family?  Absolutely if it is a passion.  One thing to remember is that pursuing your passion off work is easy (relatively) when you are not married.  It is very hard to pursue your passion once you have your own family and a demanding job - but where there is a will there is a way and we could definitely make it happen.  I am not trying to be very optimistic here, but in reality I have been able to satisfy my passions considerably.

I love music.  I love cooking.  I love photography.   I love parrots and I have a companion parrot (very time demanding one).  I have a long list here as I have transformed my passions into serious hobbies - I believe it works that way rather than looking at it like passion.  On the other hand; I love my Job and I love my family very much.  This is where '"realistic practicality" comes in.  You may wonder how I am able to manage this long list.  It is pretty simple - organize and Prioritize.  This empowers you to handle time more efficiently.   I have a demanding full-time job but still I  am able to play drums with my friends during the weekends.  I  also find time to experiment with cooking in the mornings (squeezing in little time to quench your passion) before I get to work.  I spend everyday a lot (really a lot) of time with family after work.  Once in a while grab my camera and take some pictures and snug it close during the weekends and whenever or wherever I drive my car.  I also play online video games like CounterStrike and BattleField2 online very frequently.  While doing all this, I am also able to put in a few blog posts and take post requests from my wonderful little group of readers.  A very important note for people with multiple passions like me - you have to give more importance to your "main passion/passions" and less importance to "side passion/passionss" - prioritize that is what it is all about.  There is nothing wrong in having multiple passions and I have met a considerable number of people with many passions - so we are not "odd and different."  All I can say is do not try to confine your passion into a "single one" or a "small list" but do remember to have a limited list or a single "main passion" which is what your heart yearns more for than the others.

When the life demands to put a restraint to your passions, please do not try to bury them.  First of all, stop questioning yourself, why I have not become what I wanted to be?  This is life and we do not know what life has in store for us.  Do take passion along with you for a wild ride in LIFE.  Yes it is possible and definitely not exhausting because passion gives you more energy and recharges you.  If you do feel exhausted that means that is not passion at all.

As usual I have steered away from what I wanted say.  My blog posts are never planned and I type out as the idea flows out of my mind.  I think I have made a lot of points (complicated ones as usual) and I  would like to conclude this post with a small concluding note (may be a little long one).

PRACTICALITY is something which lets you BALANCE your regular JOB and PASSION.   You have to understand that you took a regular job because it was more practical.  Also it is practical to pursue your passion while loving your family and work.  I strongly believe if you are not spending some time on your passions you are definitely not HAPPY and if you are not happy you can never be passionate on your work.

Wait!!!  Passion for work - Yes I mean that.  Am I passionate on my work? definitely, a big YES.  A new question arises now in Lovecriminal's mind, How do you find your work to be passionate? Thank God - I think I have got an idea for another blog post "How to work with passion."  Sorry guys, our friend Google brought around 257,000,000 results for the same and do not like my post to be the 257,000,001; may be 257,000,001. Just Kidding !!!!!

 

Life is a roller coaster . . .

I regularly come across people who say life is great, good and very good all the time.  They say they are happy always.  I envy them (not much) - at the same time I have a serious doubt in what they say.  No one can sustain being excited and happy about life always (just like 24x7).  We are supposed to have a few good times, a few or more bad times coming in cycles (random cycles) - that is life.  Life is like a roller coaster ride - definitely not smooth.  If a roller coaster ride runs straight and swift - it would definitely be called as a train ride that means nothing.  The real excitement of life is the unexpected happenings it has in store for us.

We have to understand the fact that life is filled with ups and downs.  We cannot help changing it - things happen eventually.  We are charged up when something good happens to us ; on the contrary we totally get drained out when something bad happens to us.  Actually, you have to stay charged high when you are down to push you out of it.  Likewise, do not waste your energy when you are having a great time - cos as you are feeling good you need no extra charge to propel yourself.  If you are too charged ,  you would get high and start to tailspin or burn yourself out because of the extreme charge.  Reserve the power for a tough day - it may not be that far.

There is no 'brake' available during the ride to take a pause in life and think, but before you strap yourself you know that you are in for a wild ride.  Everybody knows the fact that life in reality will not be fair all the time - but they forget the fact that they sometimes have time for preparation. 

Sometimes life will just go like a swift ride - circling the same place (you do not even know what direction are you headed too) - sit back and relax because you might either get a spike or a downfall after this short circling. which would need more of you.  You have to realize the fact that the ride is gonna be wild and you gotta stick with it till the end.

 This video does not reflect anything written in this post.
The title of this song inspired me to write this post.

Tips and strategies to face this ride?

Take the ride with a pessimistic approach (preparing for the worst) which would season you to face difficulties better as you are planned.  During the ride you will have spikes like marriage, children and a whole lot of good things in life - you do not need any help during that time.  During the worst times - transform into an optimist and start looking at brighter things in life like,

• if you have money problems - you have a job and you are healthy, you can come over it through time.
• if you lose your job - you could find a better job, may be it was time for you to change your job.
• you fall sick - you know you could regain your health or at least you are not dead.
• (you can approach all the problems this way)

A small tip is to look at yourself in a mirror and say "this is worse but definitely not the worst - that makes this worse a little better."

Easy to say, very difficult to follow, lets try taking life this way.....

Family-Work Equilibrium

Maintaining equilibrium between family and work is critical because these two are opposing influences in life.  Permanent equilibrium is not possible in a short term; it is a continuous process persuaded by ever changing demands of work and family life.  Financial goals, gender responsibilities, lack of time, cultural and family background tends to sway away the equilibrium and one has to work on a tailor-fit solution based on their needs, goals and priorities.

The first step is that one has to be very professional in the work they do.  Starting work a little early will help prioritize the day’s work and deliver it in time.   Never bring family work or worries to the office because a clear mind is mandatory to excel at work.  Prioritizing work at office makes the chance of taking work back home very lean which provides invaluable after-work time to be spent with the family. 

The second step is to prioritize all family responsibilities and make use of the weekends and holidays fulfilling them.  Marriage and parenthood has to be planned.  Sharing of housework and child care among partners is vital for working couples.  Decisions are to be made jointly by the couples to avoid any future confusion.  Equal value has to be given to career goals of both.  Having a weekly schedule is very essential to plan and prioritize the weeks’ work.

Finally, never restrict the way of life too much.  Take a break and go out for a movie, dinner, or a windy drive.  Make sure these breaks do not collapse the equilibrium (a little shaking is fine – it happens).  It is hard to maintain the equilibrium but one will come up with efficient strategies once they start working on it.

Technology Distraction

Distraction is something that takes you attention from what you are doing. Distractions can be interesting, amusing, relaxing – yeah definitely anyone would love that. But distractions are irritating when you don’t want your attention to be diverted. Just like passive smoking, sometimes a person addicted to electronic gadgets not only is distracted by own self but also wastes valuable time he is expected to spend with others (kids on video games, men hooked onto laptops, women chatting away on their mobiles are classic examples of the above – lot of passive damage involved).

Some of us know about technology distraction and some of us really are not aware of the same.  I wanted to write about technology distraction in this blog after a few instances which forced me to blog about this.  Sometime back the status message of my "Anni" got my attention, her facebook status message read like this "Bryan (her son) said to his DAD (my bro) you are like Scrat (Ice age - needs no introduction) and his NUT - Pappa and Laptop."  Most of the dads are hooked onto the laptops, me too, but my daughter is a toddler and just tries to distract me and grab attention and does not say statements like my nephew.  You may think I am cruising off topic, it is not.  I am keying here about technology as a distraction for quality family time.  Many years back laptops were not quite common but still everyone were doing their job.  When people came back home they spent valuable time with the family.  Nowadays with wi-fi enabled homes and laptops becoming cheap everyday, most of the homes have a laptop.  To be honest, people who use laptop at home should ask themselves a question first.  Is it really needed to use the laptop now?  I think most of them would say yes, but in reality it is not true.  Some people like to take home work (I am talking about people who spend time chatting in office versus people who like to work more, more, more, more even if they are assigned regular work).  The technology distraction in the family does not stop alone with the grown men alone.  Kids on the other hand are hooked onto gaming consoles or PC games.  Social media has made stay-at-home moms busy and they either tweet, scrap, post on the wall, or share photos, videos, among friends.  To make everything worse social media is available in most of the phones to bring in more distraction.  Okay let me stop talking about home.

Happy Life with no technology distraction

 In office many people like to show off their fancy ringtones, it is good if you like that particular ringtone, but think if you are in middle of a very important job or a business and you hear Black Eyed Peas "My Humps" on the next desk, to add more flavor to it MORE LOUD.  Not to mention the SMS we receive on our own phones (we have to check on it because it might be an important one from the spouse or family).  The same applies to the marketing calls also.  Even if it is in the vibration mode, it makes us to turn our heads to the phone and then realize that it is not the call for you.  I remember reading somewhere that it takes you 10 minutes to regain concentration if you are distracted.

I think I have keyed in enough for the day, would like to key in more regarding the same in the future.  To all GPS users, I have a question for you all, how you guys are able to concentrate on the road and also look at GPS (don't say you listen to the voice commands because I have seen people using GPS and having their car stereo on).  I would like to know how you could multitask the stereo, the GPS, the traffic, and in India (shift manual gears).