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.