“Passion or practicality?” Many people have asked this question throughout their career journey, but a large amount of individuals choose the latter despite having no initial interest in the field they end up in. This could be the main reason as to why many people go through life with a job that does not fill them with a sense of meaning or purpose. Sure, a person may argue that it was their family who chose for them, but at the end of the day, a father’s wishes may be deeply rooted in the hope of their child finding financial stability, long-term viability, and better resource management. Another person may try to reason that they picked this path because they want to aid in the betterment of the overall well-being of the majority, but that just leads them back to promoting the ideas of the father.
However, despite its advantages, practicality may very so often kill passion. In a world that prioritizes sciences over arts, an abstract thinker may find themselves in a colorless globe that demands logical reasoning over the fantasies of life. As a theatre-lover, I have witnessed a good amount of peers choosing to study business over production curation, myself included, because the field could at least allow a person to use their creativity in designing a product that would entertain a consumerist market. Still, even as a person tries so desperately to balance individual passion with the world’s demand for practicality, the human mind has evolved to want. A person will continue to want what gives them the adrenaline of finding life’s purpose. They will continue to search for that rush of emotions that fulfill their heart’s desires, and they will continue to yearn for the days of what could have been had they given into these.
It is evolutionary to feel such. Logically, it is the brain’s way of seeking rewards in a complex society to ensure survival. But figuratively, it is the soul’s distant wail of wanting to live. By sacrificing so much effort into a career that gives a person no meaning nor purpose, that individual also sacrifices that feeling of satisfaction the mind seeks, essentially losing the instinct to endure. In the end, people who do choose to give into the society that insists on pursuing a fruitless harvest for the individual may never taste the sweetness that grows from personal fulfillment, and they will be stuck planting coffee beans that leave a bitter taste on their tongue. But, hey, that is what they say is good for masses, right?