This afternoon, while some of my colleagues and I were sitting and talking over Adabraka waakye, we discussed the difficulties of our job as a team and laughed about the few times people had come aboard the team and felt the need to quit a few days after they began in their new role.
I raised a point which my colleagues seemed to have seconded. "On this journey, you need to have fallen in love with what you do to want to wake up and go to work, you should be passionate about it."
David and Manuel both seemed to agree and confirmed that passion was what drove them to this point.It inspired me to put this piece together because I mentioned it to them that I had been planning to do a write up on it.
When I left Legon, I worked in various positions in different organisations. Some I liked others felt like a chore and at other times, I only kept going because I did not want to stay home unemployed.
Oh I even started a business that helped me enhance my accounts' status to a point I would ordinarily never have gotten to and then I even discovered on that same journey that I would let other children experience the joy of reading as a child since I grew up living my life in books like Malory Towers, The Twins at St. Claires, Famous Five, Secret Seven, just name them. So I started my 'Cuties Readerfeast' but not without challenges.
Starting something for children required a lot of drive and I only kept at it despite the challenges because I loved seeing the children smile, it felt like I had put some sunshine in their lives. I was not playing 'god', no but it felt good to be able to help a child.
I remember how much I wanted a job in the financial sector and found one only to quit after a couple of months. I hated having to calculate FD rates, loan interest rates etc. Explaining the same products over and over again to clients and still keeping your cool when they could not even grasp an explanation on a product was not fun. Eventually realised I was not cut out for it, I took a bow graciously.
I also remember when I finished SHS, I really wanted to go to journalism school. I grew up writing fiction right from age 10, mostly writing down my Girl Guides camping experiences into fiction and being forced to put my imagination to work because Aunty Tina, the librarian thought my coming to the library twice a day to change my book meant I barely read them. Today I thank her for forcing that creativity out of me as she asked me to write whatever I read down instead of coming to change my book twice ( another story for another day).
Unfortunately, my mum said I could not go to journalism school because I had to go to the university and no child of hers was going to skip uni for journalism school. Yes, it was the era where Universities in Ghana did not have an undergraduate degree programme in journalism obviously GIJ did, but you know a mother who's bent on that 'Uni' philosophy, wouldn't compromise on less.
I think my mum had some regrets years on for imposing her wish on me but ideally, parents should also identify these skills and aid their wards to hone them, instead of making them throw those skills away completely.
My friend's big sister, Bernice, told her dad right after SHS that all she wanted to do was to fix people's hair and make sure they looked good for any occasion. We (observers from afar, including friends) must have thought then that her dad was nuts for letting her venture into her dream profession at such a young age. She went to a beauty academy to polish up her hobby and further develop her skills. Her dad built a chain of shops infront of their house and allotted her one for that purpose. She had been braiding all her sisters hair since childhood and today, she still does that with a minimum of seven workers each time I've been there. She says there is nothing else she would have loved to do better than what she does now. She said it back then too, to the point she would even phone to remind you to come and braid your hair and it was virtually for free. Well, now not anymore.
Years on, aside my chosen field of endeavour which has taken years to reach, my other skill, the one that my family took for granted and would not let me hone, all those stuff I wrote as a child that they trashed in the name of trash is what I find myself doing.
Also, I've been in jobs where I had to struggle to make an appearance and gave various explanations for not having to show up or hold on to it but have come to realise that, when you have the passion for something, it drives you to keep going even amidst the difficulties.
It brings to mind the many times I've heard people speak about what they do, like their jobs, or their fields of study. In counselling younger people, on which field of career to venture into or what area of study to opt for, now I've come to encourage people to hone their skills in areas where they already are passionate about, such as a hobby, like assembling and disassembling things, painting, caring for people when they are ill, coaching etc.
I also encourage parents to begin right down from childhood, to identify the interests of their wards especially areas that they seem to be excelling in and encourage their wards to hone their skills.
Someone keeps going to that hospital only because they would rather attend to patients no matter how much it takes them away from people who mean the world to them, than fly a plane.
Sometimes all we need is that passion, to keep going. I've felt like throwing in the towel sometimes in my current field of study. People who have been through it, know how crazy it can get. You become a slave to it, you lose touch with the world. There have been nights and days I've cried at the sight of the incomplete reading I have to do and how sometimes I just get completely lost but that thing, called the love for it, for whatever reason, keeps me going.
Are you pursuing your passion? What are you passionate about? Are you honing that skill? Remember when it gets tough, your passion can become your only option. Most of the world's greatest people are people who have risked venturing into areas where others saw no light yet their passion built them great brands.
I'm sure you know people just like I do, who have set their acquired or learned skills aside to pursue the very things they abandoned because they thought they were hobbies or nothing to be taken to another level, like sewing, cooking, singing dancing and many more only to go back to them when they did not find fulfillment in what they found themselves doing in life.
It is worth noting that, the only way you can discover what works for you sometimes, is to explore. However, there are times when the seasons of life will not permit us to explore because unfortunately, some people even at age 50, have still not found their purpose in life due to a lack of passion. If parents identified at an early stage the potentials in their children and allowed their children to hone those skills, there would be no need for unnecessary exploration.
Now it's time to pursue your passion. Remember, it will keep you going even if it doesn't pay much. It will save you from unnecessary stress and depression among other things.
Photo Source: Google photos
