Never too late to know your passion

 

Today's ST published an article entitled : 'Follow your passion' advice can backfire on the young 

The writer quoted Stanford professor Bill Burnett who thinks it is a destructive idea to ask young people to follow their passions as it causes a lot of anxiety in them. It pressurizes young people to have it all figured out by the time they are in their mid 20s.

"It's a misconception that passions are fixed, predetermined, and uncovered in a fully formed state...It is developed. It requires experimentations, exploration, and investment of time and effort," said the professor.

I think about my own trajectory. As a young girl may ambition was to be a nurse after reading about Florence Nightingale. My mother thought it befitting as I had displayed quite caring traits and was tasked with looking after my younger brother. 

However that inclination tapered off when I acquired the baby boomer ambition to enter university and secure a high salary job. Nursing was not a well respected job too and was not offered in university then. So I studied accountancy and landed a boring job as an accountant in a semi government organisation. However I managed to maneuver my way to assume the position of heading the Treasury department which I thought was more exciting dealing with money, foreign exchange and financing. Indeed it was not a bad career, one which I kind of enjoyed and held onto until my mid fifties. Then I guess I entered mid life crisis. Difficult bosses and tiresome bureaucracy at work exacerbated the urge to find more meaning than managing money for others. 

I didn't actually have to grope around to discover my passion. Instinctively I knew getting a degree in counselling was the next step forward. I can't even call it a passion it was just the natural thing to do. So I landed up being a school counsellor before being a sandplay therapist and leader running workshop for children of divorced parents, a care service vocation not far from the nursing job I aimed for when I was a child.

Well I guess I only figured it out when I reached my fifties.

Seeds for Understanding

 

Sometimes no matter how hard you try to learn and understand some concept it just eludes you.

Years ago I attended a Buddhist class on "The Dharma of Mind Transmission" taught by a monk in Chinese. I have no formal education in Chinese but understand spoken Mandarin and simple Chinese characters. The course notes include the sutra in Chinese with explanation written in layman Chinese by the teacher , below each paragraph in the sutra. Though I got the broad ideas it was quite a struggle. To help me I downloaded the English version of the sutra. Every week before the lesson I would check the Chinese dictionary and read the English version so I could follow when the teacher read from the course notes. It did help but it was a struggle. Still my takeaway from the course was I had to try my best to understand this sutra as I believe it would help me a lot in my life journey. Years past and the course notes gathered dust.

A few months back I picked it up again. I remembered I told myself this Sutra will help me live my life skillfully. At the same time I wanted to learn Chinese to stave away from dementia. So I decided to plough through paragraph by paragraph checking the dictionary and reading the English version at the same time. However there are certain texts which no matter how hard I try to understand (sometimes turning to internet for other interpretations) I just have to give up and move on. 

"故但契本心，不用求法；心即法也", This paraphrase is an example.

The English version is " However if one can attain silent and unspoken understanding, one knows that because the mind is Dharma it is, therefore, not necessary to seek Dharma."

I know what the text is saying but not what it truly means.

Then last Sunday while I drifted into a "flow" mode while doing Taiichi, in a momentary connection with the surroundings I caught a glimpse of what the text means. 

默契 - silent and unspoken understanding

Learning is a process, laying seeds for understanding when the conditions are right. Determination is good but struggle is uncalled for. Move on for the time being when it seems dark and await a glimpse of light.

Probing into the Control Freak

 

When you start getting feedback, be it subtle, direct or critical, about your behaviour from several people it is time to do a self assessment. So I have been dismissing remarks about me being a control freak from husband and son as I thought my so called controlling behaviour is directed at either their unhealthy or unkempt habits and hence is for their own good. However when I start getting comments from sister and daughter as well, it is time to do some self awareness exercise.

I have always believed that this habit is carried forward from my previous job heading a Treasury department with quite a handful of staff, as well as tight and rigid procedural adherence expected of the team when embarking on overseas asset purchases. We had to make sure all grounds were covered. 

However as I think a bit deeper there may be more to it. I am prone to being very anxious and quite worrisome by nature. In every uncertain situation I research the worst outcome. I think by being mentally prepared for the worst I can have some control. However this can go overboard and lead to excessive worries which ironically feels safer. 

Now when a person becomes aware of one's weakness there is a tendency to blame it on childhood experiences etc. Somehow finding a cause can sort of make one feels less guilty. So no surprises, I ascribed my acquired traits from fears of my parents fighting (literally) which were frequent but unpredictable. Apparently such childhood trauma could result in a person being hyper vigilant and using control as a coping mechanism.

Strangely enough while doing all these self assessment it dawns on me that there are so much things beyond my control. So why not let go of things I can't do much about and also stop believing "I" have the responsibility to interfere. 

Just the thought of this makes me feel lighter.