I wrote this article in 2007.
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A
New Job or a New Life?
Most people
start hunting for a new job when they feel they are underpaid, when the stress
at work begins to tell, when they are fed up with an insensitive boss, when
they find no excitement/challenge in the work they are doing. What they may not
realize is that the new job they yearn for is not going to make a sea change in
their lives. They may continue to be a cubicle-slave and they will basically be
swapping one 9-5 (or 9-9!!) job for another 9-5 job. The job may feed their body
but is it feeding their spirit? They have to address this deeper malaise. They
have to look facts in the face and ask themselves ‘Should I look for a new job
or a new life, a life of my dreams?’
A life of
your dreams? What is that?
Each one of us
has dreams. When we were kids we had lots of dreams. Anything was possible
then. As we became adolescents these dreams changed. As we advance in years we
get to hear more & more –‘Live in the real world, don’t dream’. So most
people start losing touch with their dreams, give up on them to become
practical citizens of the world. They accept reality and stop dreaming.
It is said that
God endowed each one of us with a unique ‘music’. The purpose of a man’s life
is to find this unique ‘music’ and create it. It is only when an individual
finds this gift and tries his best to develop it that he becomes the best he
can be. And that’s when he is the happiest and most fulfilled. This is his
‘true calling’. But most people spend their lives trying to conform, trying to
fit in rather than nurturing that gift which sets them apart from everyone
else. No wonder most die with this sublime ‘music’ buried deep within their
hearts.
Never Lose Touch With Your Dreams.
This is a
tragedy. A man who loses touch with his dreams has lost touch with himself
because dreams are what he yearns for deep down. If you ask a person what he
would do if he knew he cannot fail at anything he does, I will bet that most of
his dreams will figure in that list. So why do we give up on our dreams?
Because whenever we expressed these deep desires in front of our friends,
relatives, the responses we got were –
- C’mon,
that is impossible.
- It
is nice to think of such things but you can’t do that in reality.
- Your
dreams won’t pay your bills. Your job does. Hang on to it.
- Wake
up, live in the real world.
- If
you went after that, you will be nowhere. You will lose whatever you have
now as well.
They are
the dream-stealers.
So slowly
we start conforming to the ways of the world, become ‘practical’ and instead of
trying to find & pursue our ‘true calling’ cling on to the J-O-B. We are
convinced that pursuing our ‘true calling’ is not going to pay the bills. So it
will be foolish even to take one step in that direction.
Let’s get
out of this mental rut and try to reclaim our dreams. You can make that ‘leap
of faith’ and pursue your ‘true calling’. The transition from your current
J-O-B to your true calling will be tough but it is possible no matter what your
age & current circumstances. You have to follow these steps to make that
transition.
- Knowing what your ‘true calling’ is.
Many people go
through life without really figuring out what is that they really want to do in
life. They may reach a position of prominence, may become successful in the
eyes of the world but they die unfulfilled with the yearning that somehow they
missed their life’s mission. You can avoid this tragedy by acting now.
One
simple method to find your ‘true calling’ is to recall all those occasions when
you felt sublime, unalloyed pleasure. Then think what you did which gave you
that pleasure. Let us assume that you are an engineer doing a job. You should think
back to recall all the high points of your life when you felt really happy. You
find that when you won prizes in painting competitions in school and when one
of your paintings was selected for an art exhibition, those were the occasions
when the depth of your pleasure was the deepest. Congratulations, my friend,
you have found your ‘true calling’.
There is a catch though. Now that you have
completed the above exercise and determined the thing which you are meant to do
in life, we must double check and make sure that this is THE thing because this
is the most important decision you are going to take in life. We can’t take any
chances. Let us take the example of a woman who was stuck in a 9-5 job and
hated it. She went through the above exercise and found out that as a child and
as a teenager when she used to go for vacations to hill stations with her
parents, she was at her happiest. So she concluded that she has to leave the
hustle and bustle of the city and move to the hills. While she was
contemplating buying a house in a hill station and move there she got an
invitation from a friend who owned a lodge in the hills to stay there for a
month. She found out to her dismay that spending time on vacation and staying
there permanently had a world of difference. She didn’t like living there day
in and day out.
So you may have
felt great doing something and maybe convinced that it is the thing for you but
you have to put yourself in that situation to make sure that it feels just as
good to have it as your vocation.
- Take baby steps in that direction.
Have you ever
observed a river changing course? Sometimes it takes years and the process is
very gradual. It never happens
overnight. Similar is the case when one tries to change course of one’s career.
It never happens overnight. One has to be
patient and take small steps in the direction one wants to go.
- Making your ‘true calling’ pay.
You have
to be creative in this endeavor. Think of ways to make your ‘true calling’ a
paying proposition.
- Complete Transition
You are now
living the life of your dreams.
You can excel only at
something which you are passionate about.
Mahatma
Gandhi was a lawyer in South
Africa India British
Empire solely with the support of poor masses whose only weapons
were non-violence & non-cooperation. He & his methods were mocked at by
Churchill who called him a ‘half naked fakir’. But this half naked fakir’s
indomitable will and firm belief brought the British Raj to its knees. Gandhi
realized his dream of a free India and today all Indians savor that freedom.
Amitabh
Bachchan, (the megastar of Hindi movies) had a cozy, well paying job with a
shipping company in Calcutta. To family and friends he had embarked on a
successful corporate career. But to Amitabh himself something was missing. In
his hearts of heart he yearned to try his hand at the thing he loved the most,
acting. His dream was to act in the movies. His prestigious job fed his body
but failed to feed his spirit. He faced the choice whether he wanted to climb
the corporate ladder doing something which did not quite fire him or take the
risk of pursuing his dream. He took the leap of faith, chose the latter,
chucked up his ‘prestigious’ job and went to Bombay (now Mumbai) to pursue his
dream. The rest, as they say, is history.
These men were not born extraordinary or ‘Great’. What made
them great was the fact that they had the guts to pursue their dreams. They
were prepared to put everything they had on the line for their dream. They then
pursued it with doggedness and resolve.
Ordinary Man +
A Dream + Unrelenting Resolve = Great Achievement
So don’t lose heart. It is never too late to embark on the
journey of being truly alive.
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