Follow your passion

Mangkholun Touthang *

By following your passion it means doing what suits you best, what interests you, and doing what you love to make as your profession. If passion is present in your work, you tend to be more resilient when you encounter obstacles, you tend to have more positive outlooks and able to overcome difficulties through problem-solving.

But many of us live our lives only to please somebody, only to make somebody proud and delighted. We should keep in mind that as long as we're living only to delight somebody, we no longer live our own life but the life of that particular person.

Suppose you want to pursue a career in football or cricket, or let's say tailoring because it is your passion, but in lieu of these you study engineering or medicine which is completely the opposite of your enthusiasm, but anyway you go on with the engineering thing because you don't want somebody be displeased upon you, the word "somebody" could be your parents or your brother or your sister or your teacher, and I'm telling you if you're a person of this kind it means your life doesn't belong to you anymore but to those whom you try hard to please.

For it's obvious you're not yourself anymore, you're only pretending to be someone else.

One reason why we don't follow our passion and instead follow another person's passion is because of our fear. Let me briefly explain what I mean by this sentence: there's a difference between why you don't and why you can't.

When you can't it means you don't have the audacity or ability to do something, in this case there's nothing you could do to change a situation, but when you don't, it means you can do or you have the nerve to do something but you don't due to some reasons.

And the reason why I used the word "don't" in the previous sentence is because of the fact that while you can follow your passion, you follow somebody's passion because you are scared that person might judge you or give up on you if you don't follow what they asked you to follow. Now that fear you have is what's keeping you away from following your passion and achieving your goals.

Lots of people don't make the grade because they do something they don't actually want to. They are at the mercy of somebody else. They are like the servants of a king, they think if they don't live up to their parents or friends or mentors' desire they would end up being abandoned or uncared. That's the reason they strive to please them with the nerve of abandoning their own passion or enthusiasm.

In Manipur, a great deal of students are choosing their career by the result of their exams. It's so typical that a student who pass in the 1st division in HSLC exam would study Science in the next class or higher secondary and students who stand in second and third division would study Arts in the next class. Science stream is spared for first division students and Arts for second and third division students.

This is a fact and it takes nobody by surprise. A student who had done very well in science in high school had to continue with Arts in the secondary only because he stood in second division in the matric exam, the same applies to a student who had done well in social science in high school but had to go on with Science in the next class because he stood in first division in the matric exam.

These students' passion have obviously been decided their by their exam results or percentage. And this is one of the reasons why many students end up being numb and ignorant in the higher secondary. And it could ruin their career too. So it's time students realise this and start taking the road that suit them best, that interest them, that which they believe could lead them to success.

Sometimes the parents or close ones of a student would decide the student's passion. Parents who want their child to be a doctor or engineer would advise their kid to go on with Science and parents who want their kid to be an IAS or IPS would advise their kid to study Arts.

In this case, the student is nothing but a remote control robot. His parents won't let him follow his passion but theirs. I've come across several cases like this one and it always ended up the child blaming his parents for his failure. Because he was controlled by his parents while he could make a decision of his own and follow his passion and prosper.

A remote control robot is controlled because it cannot make a decision of itself but human beings can, and so parents in Manipur have to understand this and start asking their children their passion and help them while they follow their passion.

One cannot make someone something he is not. But passion is of different types and not all passion should be followed. For instance, one could have the passion to be a professional thief or a felon, such passions as we know are which that shouldn't be followed so we should try our best to kill those passions.

Someone I know once told me about how he regret following his high school teacher's passion. While in high school this teacher must have strongly encouraged him to study Commerce after he passes the matric exam. But he said by that time I didn't even know what Commerce means. By the way, time passed and he did pass the HSLC exam.

He said he actually had the passion to study Arts but because of the unceasing encouragement from his teacher and because he didn't want to upset him, he had chosen the Commerce stream. He had no idea where he was getting into or what he was studying because he just didn't know what Commerce means. Anyhow he managed to pass the secondary exam but without much knowledge of what he was studying.

Now he studies Arts in college saying he wasted two years learning nothing. He puts the blame on his teacher but nothing changes the situation. Let teachers recommend students what way suit them best since they sometimes know what's best for students, on the other hand, let students make the decision. You can't force somebody or win someone over into doing something they actually don't want to, it will only end up the person you won over become a failure.

The point here is that you have to follow your passion in spite of the objections made by other people. It's your life and only you can choose what's best for you. Ask yourself am I doing this or am I working on this because it interests me, or am I doing this because somebody wants me to. If you're doing it to please somebody, then better stop doing it and follow your passion instead while you have time.