The concept of Taking one's own path makes me quite uneasy. How many of us have been (or will be) bold enough to drop everything and follow our dreams? To have the courage to take a chance and see if we are successful in what we love to do? What pulls us back from pouncing on our aspirations is the fear that we may be wrong, our dreams may not be what they seem, and we may end up adrift like a raft without a rope to pull it in to the mainland, which may capsize when the water current is too high. If such a situation arises, we are afraid we may not survive the thought that it was of our own doing.
My Father loves photography and used to spend all his spare time indulging in the different aspects of the art. But he too, considered it as a hobby, never attempted (as far as I know) to make it his career. Photography was confined to his spare time when all his responsibilities towards work, family, friends and others were attended to.
(The uncaring daughter that I am, I never knew if my Mother harboured any such dreams during the days of her career! She is addicted to books and would put her hand on any that comes her way, maybe she would have made a good writer, had she given a try!)
I know many others who have hobbies they can make their careers with, but are afraid to take the leap and continue to cling to their unsatisfactory jobs. While it does have a certain advantage when your hobby is not bound to a deadline and you can be as unhappy at work as you please - "it is only a job" - it sure takes away the pleasure of "loving one's job".
I stand at a juncture where I can now take a diversion from the straight road ahead of me, try to cut across the bushes, but at the risk of finding myself in the middle of nowhere, and regretting that decision for life. On the other hand, I may end up finding a destination beyond my wildest imaginations, that would make me immensely proud to have been brave enough to take that step forward. In other words, throw software development to the wind and try my hand at what I love doing.
Comments? Share your success stories. Motivate me!
I can tend to overdo quotes, but I really like these two. (It's a complete coincidence that the two authors are named Howard.)
ReplyDelete"Don't worry about what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and do that. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive." --Howard Thurman
"Unless you set goals that seem unreachable you will never reach them." --Howard Zinn
It's so much easier said than done, to follow your dreams. Trading away financial security is amazingly scary, particularly in these difficult economic times. As for me, I may have stayed stuck in a job that I really didn't like, but life intervened in a most unpleasant way. The upside is that when everything I had considered unchangeable changed in the blink of an eye, I figured there was no better time to take a leap and leave that nasty job. What was the worst that could happen in my new life, which would consist of a very promising part-time job and becoming a small business owner the rest of the time (you can learn a bit about my new life at my blog: healing-gems.blogspot.com) - I'd go broke and have to find another job. I decided it was worth it, and haven't regretted it for a minute.
Thanks for stopping by my humble blog. And you are correct, there is a resonance here with not only my last blog post, but with many of the posts over the last three plus years... indeed, with the overall theme of my blog in general. If I were asked to predict where my life would have taken me just five short years ago - I would only have an inkling. And ten years ago? I couldn't dream this big.
ReplyDeleteAnd to think I almost didn't make it.
Mike
April 24, 2009 12:23 PM