Career Choice : Passion For Art Beats Out Bug Killing
Ill never forget Ken, a third generation Canadian I met at university in Vancouver
. He had just graduated with a BSc, and was enrolled in a Masters program for Pestology. British Columbia is full of bugs threatening various kinds of natural resources, and Ken was going to specialize in destroying those bugs. However, he was first going to treat himself.
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As a dutiful son of Asian parents, Ken was brought up to respect and obey his elders. Family honor is a primary value among Asian communities, so Ken had dutifully taken math and sciences through high school and university. But he harbored a secret passion for art.
Growing up on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, his home had been situated next to a sign shop, and Ken spent many happy hours of his youth helping the proprietor draw and paint signs with vivid and wonderful colors. Although he found some opportunities to draw, this artistic side of Ken was neglected as he nurtured the social side of his self and worked hard to meet the expectations of his parents and community.
But, after entering grad school, Ken decided he was entitled to finally indulge his strong desire to learn more about art, and so he took an evening art class. That was it! He was hooked. He dropped his Pestology program, and focused on art. Finally, he was working with passion using his natural talents and motivations. He quickly completed a degree in Arts & Culture and went on to become an internationally renowned artist.
His story is particularly poignant to me not only because I knew him way back when, but because Ill never forget the double-take I did when I saw four large billboard banners hanging on the outside wall of the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography some years ago.
His exhibition paired life-size studio portraits of individuals and families of various ethnic backgrounds with bold-colored, corporate style logos of their names on enamel and plexiglass. They appeared as huge signs. And the text with the photos raised questions of identity, gender, race and class. They took me right back to the long and heated discussions I often heard at university on those issues. A review our local paper at the time slammed the exhibit for its politically correct tone.
But Ken succeeded in doing what artists are suppose to doget the public talking and debating about what is often taken for granted in everyday discourse and behavior. Art is suppose to foster strong opinions on both sides of a question! I can just imagine how pleased and happy he wouldve been to see his ideas bandied about in a nationally recognized newspaper.
The point is that Ken had traded in his can do skills for his passion. And he was making his mark. For me, to see his art hanging on huge signs on the outside walls of a national gallery was like a loud shout of joy declaring Kens love of life! It was a validation of his passion and purpose. What I saw was a triumph of natural talents and significance over the safety Ken couldve had by sticking to a career as a pestologist using his can do skills.
That is not to say he may not have destroyed bugs in B.C. that deserved it, and gone on to make a contribution there of significant economic impact, using his can do skills. But I cant help but think that the world would be a poorer place if Ken had not honored his authentic self and nurtured his talents and motivations through his passion for art.
This is a core principle that I stick to when working with individuals :
http://www.jobjoy.com/jobjoy_services.php
When your work utilizes your natural talents and motivations, when your daily grind is helping to create what really matters to you in life, then you are in your right work. There is a flow to it, an innate satisfaction abounds from it, and you derive genuine joy from what you do, a joy that is clearly evident to others.
by: George Dutch
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