I’m on the train commuting to work. My purse was way too full to fit my netbook in this morning, so I decided I would just do some phoning. I turned on Monday’s episode of WTF with Marc Maron and stared at my screen for something to do on my phone. Blank. Nothing to do? Unacceptable. Time to do some blogging. I turn off Marc and get to it.
The first line I wrote on this post was the Title “On Passion, ” and immediately regretted it. Who am I to speak in general terms about something so irigumbulous that it actually makes the world go round? (yes, I just made up a word). Passion is what makes smart people come up with smart stuff (you won’t find this definition on Merriam-Webster, so feel free to use me as the bibliographical source). A smart person’s passion is what makes them believe that something can be done while everybody else is saying “you’re crazy, it’s hopeless” or “it’s impossible” or “it’s been tried, and they all failed.” I guess I have always thought I’d be that kind of person: the idealistic kind that would throw it all away for her dreams. The problem is that common sense is getting in the way, and it’s making me reconsider the whole thing.
Enough with the abstract speak. This is what I’m talking about: I fell in love with programming when I was in high school and that is all I have wanted to do since then. The problem is that I am simply not as good as other people who have had fifteen years of sitting at a desk and cranking out code. Instead, I have gathered years and years of leadership skills. Now I am 31 and my career choices are starting to narrow.
It’s not like when I was 20 and I could do and be anything. Back then I was a tabula rasa. My mind was play dough: raw moldable potential. By now, my mind has taken the shape of a get-things-done leader. Try taking that sculpture that has been in the making for 10 years and ask the sculptor to now mold it into a programmer. Here’s the thing: clay doesn’t stay moldable forever. It dries out. For the sculptor to now turn it into something completely different, he’ll have to build on top of what was originally there. It will look off. It will have 3 arms and two brains (one inevitably bigger than the other). It will not look as perfect as someone who started out on the right path. It’s bulky, and it might not fit the requirements of the company who ordered its making. It’s garbage. If I were the requestor, I would ask myself: why deal with the bulk? Why not just get a much cheaper sculpture that is right out of college and ready to be molded?
I went back to metaphors, didn’t I? I guess what I’m trying to get at is that, regardless of what I choose to do with my career, I need to know that the past decade was not for naught, but I am having a very difficult time reconciling my love for writing code and my natural skills as a leader. As we speak I have 2 interviews for software engineering positions lined up, and I’m waiting for an interview to be set up for a management position in my current company. Two completely distinct paths. Not qualified vs Perfectly qualified. Unknown territory (and potentially halting) career path vs career in full bloom. Dream vs Reality.
There is no right answer here. I could decide to go full throttle for either path and I will be FINE. I will succeed. I will be happy with my choice (or at least at a delusional level until the internal conflict comes back because of a crappy manager or crappy assignment). There are no losers here.
On a side, but related, note, my friend Sarah sent me a link to an article that touches just on this point of passion. The main point is that passion is not something you “follow” but “cultivate” instead. It’s something that will happen if you manage to stick it out during bad times and continue to grow professionally. If you want to love your job, you’ll have to put in the work now on jobs you might not love.
So what do *I* have to say about passion? Here it is: if you are lucky enough to have made a career out of the thing you love most, then I got nothing for you. In fact, you most likely have some advice for me instead. But if you are like me, and your passion lies outside of your job, I would say to not let society define how you fulfill that part of your life. It doesn’t HAVE TO BE through your JOB (a lot of us simply cannot afford to anyway) . You can still spend a lot of time into your passion on the side. A lot of very successful people started out focusing on their passions part time and moved on to full time later in life. Some people actually manage to have both: a lucrative career they are great at and draw satisfaction from and a passion they spend time with on the side. To put it in perspective, remember that the vast majority of people never go after their dreams at all because they are too busy making life happen: Jobs, spouses, kids, houses. We spend time on those because they are important to us. Just remember that nobody is going to come to you saying “you have worked so hard for your family and it’s time for you to do what you really love now” and then hand you your dreams on a silver platter. I know we all secretly think we are going to be saved. Not gonna happen. Pick a path and save yourself.
But who’s going to save *me*? (back to whining)
The perpetual damsel in distress,
ina
Ever wonder what the best way is to withdraw your job application, even after you have already sent out thank you notes and reinforced your interest for the position? Yeah, me too.