Many people say that “college is a time to find your passion”, but a lot of times college students mistake this for “my passion will come to me” or “that perfect idea will be there one day”. Instead of finding their way through life, college students lose their internal compass and what makes themselves unique.
This is the driver for herd mentality, where a large portion of people look at each other on what to pursue. Chances are that they won’t really enjoy what others are doing because there are not any emotional connections or personal drivers to that specific goal. Many of these “goals” such as getting a job at a very prestigious firm or getting into that research lab become institutionalized. Many students’ decision-making criteria for a school is based on how good a program is. If the university has a good business program, a majority of kids say that they are gunning for the business school. This may not seem like too much of a problem, but when survey results point out that almost 80% of people hate their jobs, it is obvious that this is the starting point.
The mentality that “your passion will come to you” is one of the worst things that any student should think because it 1) leaves your future to external factors and not yourself 2) leaves many people unhappy because they don’t even understand themselves and lead dishonest lives and 3) causes individuals to dabble and not achieve mastery.
Let your passion be yours and not the ones of millions
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” — Mark Twain
This is so ingrained into a lot of high achieving students that even preaching how “failure leads to growth” leads to no change. High achieving students don’t push themselves outside their comfort zone and stick to what they are good at, which is school. The most that these lessons do is that they try out different activities inside school, but rarely do students go outside institutions. We show how the biggest leaders failed countless times before their success, but students still follow the herd in pursuit for “security”.
The truth is that the ones we always talk about never go on that traditional path. They never go by the book. If it was that…
