By Bayo Ogunmupe
When people learn that I'm a columnist, the majority of them will immediately tell me how they have ideas for books and columns. Many say they need editors for their autobiographies with certain ideas that would be a mega- bestseller. But most of them haven't published anything nor are they working on their cherished biographies. In other cases, writing an article a day becomes too much labour; their ideas dry out after a month. They are frustrated. They are at odds with themselves. The very thing they love is proving to be a misfit. How can that be?
We are doing people incredible disservice by telling them they should seek, and pursue, what they love. Usually, people can't differentiate what they really love from their passionate dreams. More importantly, you are not meant to do what you love. You are meant to do what you are skilled at. Imagine an aspiring doctor with a low Intelligence Quotient (IQ) but lots of passion. That person rightly wouldn't make it through medical school, and you shouldn't want them to. If he didn't know better, inferiority complex would ensue, prompting a lifetime of bitterness and feelings of a failure.
Premeditating what we'd love to do without actually being in the thick of it is the beginning of the problem. And having too much ego to scrap it and start all over again is the end. When we anticipate what we'd love, we are running on a projection, an assumption. In Nigeria contrary to the facts available, everybody believes he has the talent to succeed at the thing he really loves. But certainly, not everybody is correct. We never like to acknowledge our deficiencies and imperfections. Preferring to import rather than manufacture our own goods; yet we rate ourselves high in inventiveness and creativity without anything to show for it.
FELA
Failing to eat the humble pie by accepting our inadequacies, we may wallow in poverty and unemployment for decades to come. If everybody did what they thought they loved, the important things wouldn't get done. To function as a society, there are labours that are necessary. Someone has to do them. Is that person robbed of a life of passion because he has to choose a life of skill and purpose? No, of course not. You can choose what you love, simply by how you think of it and what you focus on. Living is working; you cannot think of worthwhile living without work, a career or an occupation. Being alive is working.
There are few jobs that are fundamentally easier than others; whether by virtue of manual labour or brainpower. There is only finding a job that suits you enough that the work doesn't feel excruciating. there is only finding what you are skilled at; and then learning to be thankful for being to contribute to national growth and prosperity. The real joy in living is in what we have to give society. We are not fulfilled by what we can seek to please us, but what we can build and offer. It isn't fame or money or recognition that makes for a truly meaningful life, it is how we put our gifts to use. It is how and what we give.
Think about the phrase: "Do what you have to give." What you have to give. That which is already within you. Because you are unique, your gifts are not random, they are a blueprint for your destiny. There is more to life than seeking after your own happiness alone. You cannot be happy among starving people. Your happiness is contingent upon other happy people. Your talents may not boost your ego as much, but if you apply to them the higher thinking that allows you to find purpose within them, you will be able to get up daily and work diligently. Not because you are stoking your ego but because you are using what you have to the benefit of all humanity. You are doing what Jehovah sent you here to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment