“A strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm, or desire for
anything.”
“indulge in
daydreams or fantasies about something greatly desired.”
Above mentioned sentence are meaning of passion and dream
according to the dictionary. Which part makes these two words common? Answer is
‘STRONGLY DESIRED’. Meaning of passion or dream might be differing from person
to person but this word ‘STRONGLY DESIRED’ will remain common. Passion is
something you dream or desired and you make your effort to chase them, passion
is what you like to do, passion may be job or getting something or making
change in society or even chasing a girl (yes now most of the boys have many
passion and same implies to girls – no gender discrimination), passion may be
temporary or permanent, there may be more than one passion. In short passion
can be anything that you strongly desire.
But always questions arise ‘Are we following our passion?
Are we doing stuff what we desired or what we like?
Are we happy of what currently we are doing?
There would be lots of question arises when we talk about
passion. Let’s see what study and research says.
HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE FOLLOWING THEIR PASSION?
84 percent of young people not pursuing their passions according to Pitman Train-ing and Census wide’s research.
With 84% of 16-24 year olds
revealing that they don’t know how to turn the interests they’re passionate
about into a career, and 49% of these respondents considering that their lack
of qualifications halts them exploring aspiration career opportunities, the
next generation of employees are at risk of career dissatisfaction after
entering the job market, according to Pitman Train-ing and
Censuswide’s research.
Young
people are also against more ‘traditional’ jobs such as admin or accounts, that
could be a door opener to their dream career. Nearly 3 in 5 (58%) young Brits
(aged 16-24) are in agreement with the stereotype that working in admin or
accounts is ‘boring’ and ‘old fashioned’. Retail is considered an easy way of
entering employment, with almost 4 in 5 (79%) of young Brits (aged 16-24)
agreeing on this.
The top interests respondents
aged 16-24 are passionate about include music, fashion, and technology, yet
they believed that they wouldn’t be able to pursue a career in these sectors.
84% of 16-24 year olds with interests
they’re passionate about did not feel able to pursue a career in these
interests, broken down as follows:-
- Music: Nearly half (49%) of
16-24 year olds identified music, with Yorkshire being the most musical
region across all ages
- Fashion: Over a third (35%) of
16-24 year olds identified fashion with Cardiff being the most Fashion
focused city across all ages
- Tech: A quarter (25%) of 16-24
year olds and over a quarter (27%) of 25-24 year olds had a passion for
tech, with the North East being the most passionate about Tech (27%)
across all ages
- Drama: A quarter (25%) of 16-24
year olds identified Drama, with Cardiff being the most passionate rating
above average at 30% across all ages
- Sport: A fifth (21%) of 16-24
year olds identified Sport
- Celebrities: 14% of 16-24 year
olds identified working with celebrities
Stanford researchers: ‘Follow your passion’ advice could make you
less successful
According to an
upcoming paper in Psychological
Science written by three Stanford researchers, that advice may
actually make people less successful, since it unrealistically implies an
easy path to success and narrows your focus too much.
Stanford
psychologists Carol
Dweck and Gregory Walton, with
the help of former Stanford postdoctoral fellow Paul O’Keefe, conducted a
series of laboratory studies that examined the belief systems that lead people
to succeed or fail.
The researchers recruited
participants from two categories: those who were passionate about science,
technology, engineering and math (STEM), and those who were passionate about
humanities and the arts.
Over five experiments,
the researchers observed a total of 470 participants as they read articles and
watched videos on subjects that interested them and on subjects that did not
interest them. Participants who were deeply interested in only one
topic were less likely to finish and understand the materials.
The researchers concluded
that popular mantras like “follow your passion” make people think that
pursuing a passion will be easy. Believers are then more likely to give up
when they face challenges or roadblocks.
Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and star on
ABC’s hit reality television show, “Shark Tank,” takes this line of
thinking one step further.
“One of the great lies of life is ‘follow your
passions,’” said Cuban as part of the Amazon Insights for
Entrepreneurs series. “Everybody tells you, ‘Follow your passion, and
follow your passion.”
He argues that people
should focus on their strengths rather than their passions, because we are
not always good at the things that interest us the most and because perfecting strength
can become a passion.
“I used to be passionate
to be a baseball player. Then I realized I had a 70-mile-per-hour fastball,”
jokes Cuban. Competitive major league pitchers throw fastballs in the range
of 90-plus
miles per hour.
“When you look at where
you put in your time, where you put in your effort that tends to be the things
that you are good at. And if you put in enough time, you tend to get really
good at it,” he says. “If you put in enough time, and you get really good, I
will give you a little secret: Nobody quits anything they are good at because
it is fun to be good. It is fun to be one of the best.”
MY RESEARCH
I also tried to find something related to this topic
through a small research. It was done through online questionnaire and
questions like
‘Are you following your passion or dream?’
‘If you have ever change your passion
than how many time?’
‘Are you Happy or satisfied about what
you are currently doing?’ ,
And few more questions were asked and I got
around 100 responses which is less and this
research was bias as 90% of the responses was age group between 18 to 26 year.
76% of people said they didn’t follow
their passion and from that 75% were happy about what currently they are doing
24% people said they are following their
passion from that nearly 85% were happy about what they were doing
One thing common between this two groups
were 80 % of the people changed their passion more than once.
CONCLUSION
As we see above study we couldn’t arise
at one definite conclusion. Every person will have different opinion about this
topic. Let’s see some real life example
1) Sharukh Khan:
Sharukh khan’s passion was to study and he was very
clever but in order to survive and to earn money he did serials and then movies
and rest is history.
2) Yuvraj Singh :
Initially Yuvraj didn’t like cricket he wants to be a
skater or actor or tennis player but no to cricket. But his father was
determined to make him cricketer. When first time his father took Yuvi to
Navjot Singh Sidhu for training after seeing some shots played by Yuvraj he
told ‘ Le java apke bacche ko aur isko ladkiyo vaala khel khelao e cricket nahi
khel paayega’ and from that point his father never look back and rest is
history.
3) My story:
I will keep it short, initially I want to be a cricketer
as most of Indian kid dreamt of but I couldn’t stick to that and then I want to
be an 100 meter sprinter and for that I also worked hard and won 2-3 tournaments
but I couldn’t grab the opportunity due to education even after getting offer
to compete at state level. And if I talk about present I had come long way and
I am Happy about currently were I am.
So guys above 3 story might cover most of things what you
might have gone through i.e. Need to survive thing , parents pressure ,
Education pressure , etc. but still remember passion is never a one they might
be many and when you get more experienced and older you discover that. So never
lose hope and do whatever you feel.
Guys you can share
your opinion or story of yourself in comments as this topic has different
opinion.
And I also want to share some selected comments made by
people about this topic in my questionnaire:
- Wants keep changing with time and age, our passion drives our wants in life.
- It's never too late to change your passion and start all
over again. Just do
what you Love.
- All time passion does not fulfill every wish as for that you have to choose one more path as secured one in future.
- Passion is equivalent to chasing or achieving the dreams!
- Just fuel up your passion
- We must act out passion before we can feel it. Passion should be your energy
