Passion or Fashion?

7 P.M. Cool and pleasant evening. I was on an evening walk.

I was almost pulled by the rhythmic beats of Mridangam (a type of percussion instrument) from behind the hedge.

Raja (name changed) was practising, looking at the notations by his side. He could hardly read the notebook. He was sitting in dark at the farthest corner by the side of the eastern express highway in Thane.

For over five minutes Raja didn't even realise that I was standing by his side watching him play the Mridangam. My wife was watching patiently from a distance. She is used to such foolish halts of mine.

With a little bit of inquiry (finally when he looked at me), I came to know that he stayed in a rented shanty. His workplace was a few kilometers away. And that he sometimes came to practise in this corner whenever he got time. Once in a month he would go to his native near Murbad about 100 kilometres and take lessons from his Guru there.

What a commitment towards one's passion!

Whereas it is very easy to get spoilt (with smoking, drinking and chewing tobacco) in a metro city like Thane or Mumbai, the boy chose a corner and Mridang. The young boy (at 20 age) was pursuing his passion by the noisy and polluted roadside after work hours.

The reason: 

His neighbors would complain to his landlord about the 'noise' of Mridang. 

No room inside his room that he shared with a couple of partners.

Many 'innovate' hurdles to complain of 'why and how a thing couldn't be done' even after the corresponding resources were available in abundance. The young boy instead found solutions over his hurdles while nurturing his passion, staying alone 100 kilometres away from his family.

What an empowerment and self-enablement!

Sure to grow into a real life RAJA (King) of his passion if he continues to nurture it with consistency (rather than Passion as a Fashion) and self-managed supervision like Ekalavya.

Actually while I was writing this blogpost, my wife showed me a WhatsApp ping. It wrote "Joshua Bell, playing incognito in the D.C. Metro Station, that was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people's priorities.

This experiment raised several questions:

In a common-place environment, at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty?

If so, do we stop to appreciate it? " particularly when it comes free!

May be the boy is still to go far as a percussionist.

But what I wanted to appreciate was that that's how big names get made. In fact most successful people in various fields have left similar trails in their individual lives. They had little more patience to turn tables over while their problems were hell bent on testing them.

Their passions won over their problems by miles!

Big names get made when people find opportunities in problems without complaining about lack of resources, if any.

Big names get made (with holistic satisfaction as the result) when people find and nurture their passions rather than running after the run-of-the-mill careers.

Who knows (like Joshua Bell) sometime in life the boy may become a great percussionist if not Padma Shri Zakir Hussain!

In his humble mind, perhaps he already is!!

Here's my Haiku poem over the learning of the day:

Passion isn't a Fashion

Success isn't a cushion
Life is being in Motion

Also read a few relevant blog-posts hereunder: Please do consider leaving a comment or consider sharing this post.

Do you know a Best-Career-Plan

Take your career in fast lane!

Talent-Is-Latent: Enable It! 

Crying? It's time to kick-it-off! 

Is Your Job Boring!

Is the Free cheap?

Overworked? Tension? CPU of the mind hung-up? 

Do you exercise your choice meaningfully 
IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important? 
Eternally Happy! 
In-a-problem? No-problem! Dwell-a-while! 
I am afraid ! What do I do !! 
Fearful-Of-Death-of-Birth
Take Habits For A Ride 
Big-Be Or Bug-Be ! 
Are You Good If Others Are Bad?  
Want Need-Or-Want 
How To Make A Difference 
Success-or-failure! What-do-you-like?
Succession-Plans In Fast Lane! 
Do you exercise your choice meaningfully
Do You Ask Right Questions? 

Carrier for the Career 

Carrier for the Career

Will I succeed in the career I choose and chase thereafter?

This is usually a question that lingers on the mind of most prospects.

In a couple of blogposts¹ earlier, I offered some guidance. In this one I would like to value add by offering some visual explanation.

There always exists some demand D, correspondingly some careers C and some passions P. In some cases, they overlap as in sketch-1 and in other cases they exist mutually exclusively as in sketch-2. 

Some people nurture their passions after office hours or at weekends. Those who do not know their passions may like to keep a journal of the activities that they enjoyed during working hours as well as after working hours and during weekends. Those could be the pointers to their passions!

Various types of demands could be due to the basic human needs (like food, shelter, clothing, security and education as in Maslow's hierarchical model) or due to wants (or so called glorified higher needs) as well.

CD arrow indicates that you may fall (burn) out of the current career irrespective of the demand being in place. This is true particularly if the both do not overlap the circle of passion.

PC arrow indicates that demand can get created if passion is in place and corresponding careers are available.

PD arrow indicates that career can be easily made if passion and demand both are in place.

If all of the P, C, D, co-exist then what's the problem?
Why does the doubt of 'success and failure' and that of 'choose and chase' exist?

One reason could be that the three might be floating around in isolation in their own P, C and D zones independently (mutually exclusively in the mathematical lingua), something like as you see in the sketch-2.

If however all the three overlap as in sketch-1 then the shaded zone (the green dot area common to P, C and D) is the most easier one for the prospects to succeed. That's because demand and careers are already available as a carrier for their passion to ride upon. In fact there'll be a pull from it for one's passion even if one may not want it.

Career chosen in this zone is where you are likely to make a major difference and leave your impact.

C and D (the orange and red dot areas) are where you need to push yourself very hard to create the carriers for a career to join the demand. You also need to work exceptionally hard to create skills and capabilities in line with the market demand. The reason is you need to work away from what you already have. The degree of push may vary a little depending upon the saturation level of the careers and the satisfaction levels of the demands as well.

Instead working on what you already have (your passion, the blue dot area) in order to enhance skills and capabilities in line with the opportunities that the market provides, creating the corresponding demand and career is much easier even if they hardly exist. You may have to do a little spadework though.

You may need to push very little to create a carrier for your career. You'll succeed anyway it being your passion. The criteria of success will more be enjoyment derived out of the process or journey rather than merely the earnings out of it. You are surely going to enjoy it because it's your passion that you are furthering it.

Those who understand this P-C-D interrelationship, don't have to worry about the Carrier for their Career. This is particularly true for the passionate ones because they are already 'play'ing the game of it rather than 'work'ing it out.

They already have answer to the question of 'choice and the chase'!

They are likely to be the most successful ones!!

Also read a few relevant¹ blog-posts² hereunder: Please do consider leaving a comment or consider sharing this post.

Footnote-¹

Do you know a Best-Career-Plan

Take your career in fast lane!

Talent-Is-Latent: Enable It! 

Crying? It's time to kick-it-off! 

Is Your Job Boring!

Footnote-² ... Other relevant blogposts

Overworked? Tension? CPU of the mind hung-up? 
Do you exercise your choice meaningfully 
IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important? 
Eternally Happy! 
In-a-problem? No-problem! Dwell-a-while! 
I am afraid ! What do I do !! 
Fearful-Of-Death-of-Birth
Take Habits For A Ride 
Big-Be Or Bug-Be ! 
Are You Good If Others Are Bad?  
Want Need-Or-Want 
How To Make A Difference 
Success-or-failure! What-do-you-like?
Succession-Plans In Fast Lane! 
Do you exercise your choice meaningfully

Do You Ask Right Questions? 
Overworked? Tension? CPU of the mind hung-up?

Hoarders Of Filthy Hoardings

Recently, once again, the Honorable Mumbai High Court pushed Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) to remove hoardings.

Contempt of such court orders has been shamelessly going on for past so many years. Both the BMC as well as so-called 'leaders' creatively ignore court orders.

Now a days even school going children appear on the hoardings. The day is not far when family tree of a few generations appear on the hoardings alongwith 'sonography' pictures of their 'expected' children as well.

According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, every human being has a mental need to get recognised.

In case of Hoarders-of-filth it has become a mental disease. For such people such a need seems to have become a desire ('want') since they don't have anything that public will willingly recognise. Perhaps that's why they put hoardings of their birthdays, publicity of work that they have not done, and for many more in-explainably creative reasons. They don't even bother that apart from defacing the town, at some places such hoardings create blind-spots or distractions prone to accidents as also create fire hazards: Typically 3D: Dirty-Danger-Difficult like situations.

So good that the court has initiated various actions on inaction of local municipalities.

I think in order to make such actions sustainable by making municipalities more accountable they should be asked to create a portal where the public can upload pictures of hoardings. Corresponding municipality should statutorily be made to submit a monthly-return accounting for actions taken against the number of such pictures uploaded. This will be a sort of measure of performance for their accountability.

The actions reported in the Return should go beyond the first-aid that of bringing down such hoardings within say 48 hours of uploading the pictures (by the public). The cost/consequences/punishment to the concerned officials should necessarily be preventive in nature.