SHOULD I CHOOSE PASSION OR DUTY?

When it comes to deciding what to do with our lives, we are frequently presented with what looks like a very painful choice: the passionate path vs the safe path. The latter involves the slow mastery of a dependable profession; we will be bored-but we know we will never be fired. Meanwhile, the former is a high-wire act in which we fantasize generating an income from what we deeply love and yet we constantly fear penury and humilation.

The choice can feel acute, but it may be less so than it seems, once we properly explore the concept of safety. We are never truly safe so long as as we are doing something we hate or are pursuing out of fear of tomorrow. In the deeply competitive conditions of modernity, our back-up career- the one we adopt out of fear, will be someone else's central ambition. Our plan B will be someone else's plan A, which places us at an immediate disadvantage in terms of the energy and focus we are able to muster. The "safe" choice might ruin us.

By contrast, what we love is what we are obsessed by anyway, we'd do it for free- which decisively increases our chances of mastery while reducing the price of failure. A decade of mixed results on a passion-project is inherently less onerous than unspectacular returns for a whole career in a hateful field. It is in the end not very safe to use the one life we have forcing ourselves to do what we know from the onset we won't enjoy - simply in order to keep living.

Now this sounds simpler in theory but real life is much more complicated than that. There is no passion without duty and discipline. I personally believe there is not that much dichotomy between the two. The reality is, the moment you seriously pursue your passion, it turns into your duty. The fact that writing, volunteering and listening to others is my passion does not mean I do it with no effort whatsover. There are times I have to "force" myself to do some of these things even though I love them. The only difference however is that, I enjoy the hard work I put in everytime and the results I get than if I was doing something I am not passionate about. Duty is inescapable no matter the choice we make. Choice is also an illusion but that's a conversation for another day. (lol)

In a third world country like ours, where we do not have the financial capabilities to actively pursue our passsions, we will not even have to make the choice. Our upbringing, family background and the educational system doesn't give us that much of a choice. The 'lucky' ones may have their jobs as their passion and earn enough to support themselves and their loved ones but the same is not true for everyone.

It is not all doom and gloom when you choose duty. In fact, I believe that when one chooses duty as a means of providing for one's family and themselves, it is a noble act of courage and compassion. We can as time goes on, not see it just as a source of income, but as our own small contribution we make to make the world a better place. It may not be much, but when we believe we make a difference by just showing up and not doing a mediocre work, then we really are on the right path. And slowly but surely, we will be able to combine the two.

Kindly share with your friends and on all social media platforms. Like and comment what you think about this in the comment section below, you will have to sign in to do this. Thank you and catch you later. Have an awesome weekend ahead!!!

[Inspiration: School Of Life]