Passionate pursuits

I was lunching with my husband at a restaurant yesterday. A young couple with 2 young kids were at the next table. As it was a buffet lunch I had lots of time watching people nearby whilst my husband passionately tried all kinds of food being served. One of the kids at the next table was sitting on a baby chair whilst the elder one was trying her best to reach the food on the table. Their age difference was small and I noticed mum and dad taking turns to feed the kids and engaging them. The couple looked like professionals or executives and instantly reminded me of myself and my husband 3 decades ago in a similar situation. Very likely it was the maid's day off and the easiest way was to eat out and get the kids distracted in some new environment.

I began to muse how very likely the couples' trajectories and wishes could resemble ours a long time ago. It was a time when, with one mindedness, we spent all our energy on providing the children with every thinkable resources to nurture their physical and intellectual development as well as emotional development as an afterthought. We worked on our day job to finance and enable this pursuit and tried our best to balance the time and effort between work and family. We worried about their school work, we worried when they were sick, we worried about the friends they had or not had, we worried about their career choices, we worried about their partners or lack of. Maybe because I was gazing at them, the young mum stared at me. Maybe she thought I was being nosy or maybe she wondered whether this middle age  couple is childless and lonely or is having empty nest syndrome.

Now me, the middle age woman having lunch beside the busy young couple was really wondering what else she could do with her life other than relishing food and seeing places. What passion can now fire up my life. I watched a BBC documentary on Sir David Attenbourough, the naturalist who produced and narrated  BBC natural history programmes. The documentary showed him at 88 still travelling the world  filming natural life (often in precarious positions like being hoisted 250ft in the air filming the bat colony in a Borneo Cave); and learning with great excitement and enthusiasm of the latest equipment and technology available to make better films.

I think having a passion will keep a person going and living to a ripe old age, for example Warren Buffet at 86 is still keeping his passion of investing alive. However not everyone is so fortunate as to have a passion or know one right away. Fortunately you can find or develop one though it may be a long self-discovery process. It usually starts with recalling the subject that you often talk about most excitedly. It does not need to be something artistic or altruistic and can even be mundane to most. It's an activity that fully absorbs your mind and you are in the state of flow. One should really embark early in search for one.


"Don’t worry about what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive"- Howard Thurman