Thursday, July 04, 2013

When Does Passion Become Work?

We all are passionate about something or the other in our life. The more time we spend in what excites us and keeps us passionate, the more happy and healthy we are.

The saying goes, “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” 
― Confucius

There are counter arguments for the same.If what we love becomes work, we do not love it any more. It reminds me of another saying, " When you marry your mistress a vacancy is created!"

Getting back to the main premise. We all should have our work aligned to our passion. Alternative is that the work should pay one sufficiently to engage in passion and allow for that leisure time.

But at times the best of passion can become drudgery or boring work. This especially happens when some one instructs you do what you are passionate about. Being told to do something is one of the ways in which the brain can switch off. The flow of things get hampered and there may be no progress in your passion/work!

This is where leaders and managers who excel bring the difference. The successful leader or manager gets the outcome without explicitly instructing for the same to be done. She/he makes the person own the project and responsible for the difference being made by the outcome. Passion is not allowed to fizzle out and there is purpose attached.

The challenge is the same for parents. How does one channelize the energy and interests of kids to activities which will make them proud in the long run? How do kids continue to enjoy without harming themselves or others?

Will end with a question which i am contemplating about.

What is progress?


Friday, June 21, 2013

James Agee-Cotton Tenant, And Now Let Us Praise Famous Men

From James Agee...

"And since every possibility human life holds, or may be deprived of, of value, of wholeness, of richness, of joy, of dignity, depends all but entirely upon circumstances, the circumstances are proportionately worthy of the serious attention of anyone who dares to think of himself as a civilized human being. A civilization which for any reason puts a human life at a disadvantage; or a civilization which can exist only by putting human life at a disadvantage; is worthy neither of the name nor of continuance. And a human being whose life is nurtured in an advantage which has accrued from the disadvantage of other human beings, and who prefers that this should remain as it is, is a human being by definition only, having much more in common with the bedbug, the tapeworm, the cancer, and the scavengers of the deep sea."


http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/020_02/11650

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/06/youre-a-parasite-the-stark-morals-of-james-agees-great-depression-essay/277013/

Will have to read both the books!

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

The Gift Of Doubt-Malcom Gladwell on Albert O Hirschman

1. So is ignorance an impediment to progress or a precondition for it?
2.The entrepreneur takes risks but does not see himself as a risk-taker, because he operates under the useful delusion that what he’s attempting is not risky.
3. Hamlet shouldn’t have been frozen by his doubts; he should have been freed by them.
4.“to come to an understanding of reality in portions, admitting that the angle may be subjective.”
5. “Why are bananas bent?”
6. “Exit, Voice, and Loyalty,”
7. “Proving Hamlet wrong” was about the importance of acting in the face of doubt—but also of acting in the face of fear. Voice was courage.


http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2013/06/24/130624crbo_books_gladwell?currentPage=all

Mindtunes-A Track Created Only By Mind



Progress......