Passion vs Pressure: How to Make Choices?
Questioner: Sir, I'll be asking my next question. So, my question actually revolves around passion. For a very long time, I have been interested in electronics engineering specifically, in science, technology, and space technology in fact. It is a very niche and very specific field: space technology. Thinking practically, in India there are very few vacancies in ISRO, very few startups in space technology, and I have been doing passion projects, learning about space, and everything was directed directly towards my passion. I never thought to divert anywhere from the whole thing. My motivation was always high.
But the moment I came in my 11th standard, most of them started telling me that I am really interested in space. Why am I not going for CS? Why am I not going for electronics? They pressured me into doing something that is safe, very practical. I just want to follow my passion to the end without actually thinking about anything. But that would bring my motivation down, and I would start rethinking: do I really want to go through this whole thing because it's very risky? It's not very sure that I will get financial stability, I will get this and that.
Sir, I came across this quote from your book (Truth Without Apology). First of all, my dilemma is between passion and pressure. So, it's like the passion that I naturally have and the pressure that society tells me to do something mediocre instead: just go for CS, there is a job there. After reading the quote, "True fulfillment comes not from passion or pressure, but from a deep understanding of what must be done; driven by love, not desire," this whole line was never in my equation. Can you help figure out what someone must do by explaining what you meant by "driven by love not desire?"
Acharya Prashant: See, this is a false dilemma. Do you know what a false dilemma is? A false dilemma is when you are given two options and told that no third one exists. A false dilemma is when you are given option A and option B and told to choose between the two and convinced that no third option C exists. That is called a false dilemma. Related to this is also what is called Hopson's choice.
Hopson's choice is: among these two options, one is made to look so compelling, so inviting, so obvious that you would never go for the second one. So, there is A and B, and between A and B, A is decorated so much, embellished so much that A looks like the final only option remaining. You are told only A and B exist. C is anyway discounted. No C option exists. Between A and B, B is so scary that you’ll have to go for A. That is how you are made to go for really life sucking options.
If you go for space, you will starve. If you go for space engineering or research in space or you go into cosmology, astronomy, you will starve. There is no career there. You will be finished off. That's option B. Option A, everybody is doing CS, everybody is doing EC, everybody is doing IT or AI. Go for it, go for it. So first of all, no option C is allowed to stand. And between A and B, B is demonized so much that you finally surrender and kneel towards A. That's how the whole power dynamic operates.
You really think space scientists starve? You really think that way? First thing. Second thing, you said you loved space. You used the word passion. So go for it. Why are you caring for money?
The rule of existence is: do anything in the best way possible and you will not have to worry about your sustenance.
Money will follow, though it will not follow in predictable ways or at the desired or appointed time. It will come on its own. Yes, it might not make you a millionaire or billionaire, but you will have enough and more than enough to live happily.
But you say, "No, before I move towards my love," which you are calling passion, "Before I move towards my love, I also need to be convinced that there is enough financial security there." Yes, you can be convinced of the paths that guarantee financial security, but then those paths are all very, very crowded lanes. As a young person setting out in life with the zeal, the zest, the energy, the freshness that youth must have. Why should you choose those crowded, stuffy lanes? Why? And that too at the cost of your love, just because you have been terrorized that you will starve.
If I really have a passion to live for, what will I need too much money for? Tell me please, what will you do with that kind of money? Your days, your nights, they will be occupied by your passion, right? You really think Einstein had the time to splurge? The problem will be time. Even if you have a lot of money, what will you do with that? Because the greatest joy that you get comes from your work. It does not come from shopping, tourism, or flaunting. Do you get this? You are a painter. You would want to paint without a break if you are really in love. You are a scientist. You will want to be in your lab 24 hours. And that is what many scientists actually do.
One of my friends is coming up with a new kind of medicine to target certain bacteria in the gut, and that is a very, very niche field of research. He actually sleeps in the lab. Not that he does not have money. He has been in the US for 20 years now. Done his Masters there, BTech from IIT Delhi. He has plenty of money. But he does not want to spend the money. He does not even want to count the money, and it does not matter to him if a lot of his money actually disappears, because it is not for the sake of money that one pursues a passion.
Money follows on its own like a shadow. You do not even want to look at the shadow. You are running towards your destination. Do you want to look at your shadow? How many of you do that? Please tell me. There is your destination, and the sun is ahead of you, and a shadow is following you all the time behind you. Do you look towards your destination, or do you look at your shadow?
Listener: Destination.
Acharya Prashant: When you are looking at your destination, money keeps following you behind, sometimes to this side, sometimes to that side, sometimes ahead of you like a shadow. Sometimes a long shadow, which may mean a lot of money. And if the sun is just overhead, then a very small shadow, which may mean smaller money. The length of the shadow keeps varying. You do not care because it is not for the shadow that you are running. Are you getting it?
As young people, please realize this. Money is important so that it can enable you to work. Money is not the output of work. It is the enabler. Yes, one does need money in life so that one can work without disruption. The real deal is work, not money.
Yes, you need to have money so that you can quickly fly from one place to another, so that you save time and that time can be invested in your darling work. You don't fly just for the sake of flying. Now I have money so I fly and I fly first class. Money is definitely important. Remember, as an enabler, not as an end product.
But they scare you, they say, "You will not get money." You tell them, "I am not after money at all." And that does not mean that you reject money or abhor money. You will have money. You will have money without wanting money. And that then would mean a lot of freedom because such money, even if lost, will not disturb you too much. You are anyway not counting the dollars. Let them be there.
If they are there, fine, and if they are lost, it is again fine. It is fine. Then nobody can arm-twist or blackmail you, saying, "We will come and take away all your money if you do not stop working. There will be a raid, and all your bank accounts will be frozen." You can calmly say, "Kindly freeze whatever you want to freeze and get lost because I have to work." Is this sounding outlandish? It does not work this way? You do not work this way. It does. And try this new way of living.
What is life without real commitment, real passion, real love? What do you live for? Just wake up each day and say, "Another day, another day," and a day will come when you will run out of days. What will you tell yourself every morning? What have you woken up for? You just wear your formals and report at work so that at the end of the month you can draw your salary check. What kind of life is that?
Hey, young people! Strange, I have to talk so forcefully about love to you. We suppose youth is when love blossoms on its own. Does it not? No, it does not. Love has to be learned. You will not be harmed. Do not be afraid. Just do not be afraid. They will paint all these terrifying pictures. They will tell you, "Look at that beggar on that street there, that will be you 20 years down the line, I tell you.” Don't listen. Nothing of that sort.
“Oh, you will be a wreck. Look at Pami, Verma uncle's daughter. She tried all these fancy things that you are talking about. And that stupid author that came to your college spoke of passion, love, freshness, authenticity, and all these things. They don't count, I tell you — only fakeness matters. Only slavery wins.” No, no. That is not how existence is. That is not how life is meant to be. You can live freely. You can love, and there can be joy, and you can fly. It is possible. Yes. Don't deprive yourself of that opportunity, your real potential.
Questioner: I do agree with that. It makes sense. It is possible to be free. It is possible to be happy.
But you are talking in a very individualistic sense. Not that I have any right to speak of this, but like you said, it is not that we are just asked to drop our dreams. We are terrorized into dropping them, saying, "We will starve," or whatever. And fine, maybe I do not care about money. I do not care whether I starve or not. All right. But hypothetically, again, not that I have any right, what if I have people who are dependent on me? If I am not making enough money for them, I will feel guilty.
Secondly, you mentioned that it is not exactly natural to want to follow society’s rules. That is normal. My entire question is about this. I agree with you, but, to some extent, it is also natural because humans are herd animals. If we are herd animals, it means we must fit into society to propagate our generation, right?
Acharya Prashant: Animals do not hold mics, do they? We still want to call ourselves animals. Yes, of course, we have this biology. But we left the jungle behind, didn't we? Or do we still want to live as animals? Animals do not comb their hair, do not brush their teeth, and they do not wear any clothes.
Yes, you are very right. I agree with that, just as you agree with me. But it is to transcend your animal nature that you get educated. What else is education for? What else is this college for? If we were to remain just animals from the jungle, walking around in herds, why do you need an institution like this? Why do you need a conversation like this? The institution is about teaching you material, outer things, how the world functions. This discussion is about teaching you how you function inwardly. All of this is education. All education is so that you don't have to remain an animal anymore.
The animal does not have much consciousness. Animals do not love. All they have is instincts. Motherly instincts, yes they have that. Lustful instincts, yes they have that. But they cannot really know what we are talking about here. Not because they lack intellect. We are not talking about intellect here. We are talking about consciousness here. Getting it?
So, you said nobody comes and really terrorizes us. See, if the terrorizer comes with "terrorist" tattooed on his forehead, you will no longer be terrorized because now it is out in the open that the terrorizer is the terrorizer. Terror will often come to you in the name of love, care, responsibility, concern, and such things. If you do not see through it, you won't see how there is threat in the name of care, how there is just threat masquerading as care. How there is just ownership masquerading as love. Just possessiveness masquerading as concern for security. When lies come to you, do they first of all introduce themselves: "I am a liar. Now I will convince you?”
Lies always come posing as Truth. Terror often comes posing as love, care, and concern. And bondages often come carrying the name of responsibilities.
How do you know what your responsibility is? Please tell me. Who told you? How do you know what your real responsibility is? Please tell me. People in different cultures, at different places and different times, have had very, very different notions of responsibility. What do you think your responsibilities are? Do you think it is an innate sense of responsibility that you carry? No. You have been told you are responsible for such things. How do you know you really are? From where have you accumulated this concept called responsibility? Please tell me.
And often it is those who want to keep you in certain grooves, in certain patterns, who will tell you, "Such and such are your responsibilities." And in your innocence, which I should rather call ignorance or childish unconsciousness, you accept all those things. You look at your gender, please. Just a few decades back, women in our country and in our culture were told that it is part of their responsibility to eat only after everybody else has eaten. And India had the highest rate of anemia and so many other kinds of deficiencies in the entire world. If you go and tell a woman, "You need to take care of your diet first," she will say, "No, it is my responsibility to first take care of the household." Who told her of that responsibility? Don't you see that this is just conditioning and propaganda to keep you enslaved? Have you realized where responsibility is coming from? Again asking you, had you not been told that A, B, and C are your responsibilities, would this have occurred to you on your own? Please tell me.
Real responsibility is love. Real responsibility is not that, as a wife, you have to get up and serve tea to your husband every day at 7:00 a.m. If you do that, that is a problem. But yes, if we are in love you make tea and you say, "Come on, here is tea. Let's both sip together," that is wonderful. There is an action arising out of love, and that is beautiful. That is the real responsibility.
On the other hand, there is the tutored kind of responsibility. All of you feel the weight of that, the crushing weight of those responsibilities. Do you not? You know, "We have to live to our parents' expectations." How many of you wrote the JEE, for example? (Listeners are raising hands). Oh, it seems I have touched a raw nerve. Doesn't feel good, right? "I am responsible to clear this exam because that will bring happiness to all in sundry." Come on. Please. You will be parents soon. Would you want to crush your kids another five, ten, or twenty years down the line? Would you want to put so much weight on them that they just crack?
And then you will tell them, "Listen, son. Listen, daughter. That is your responsibility to please us." Won't that not be extremely selfish of you and extremely irresponsible too? But you would be the ones who would have taught your kids, "We are gods. Parents are Bhagwan. You worship us. So if we tell you something, it has to be taken as the gospel truth." Are you gods? But you would be, let us say, in five years, in a decade, in fifteen years, mothers and fathers, many of you.
If you are not gods, then how would you suddenly turn into gods upon becoming parents? And why should you then suddenly be vested with the authority to inflict commandments on your kids and tell them, "This is what you definitely have to do. You are responsible for this, for that?’
And then come the genuine financial responsibilities. Yes, somebody could come from a family with a very ordinary financial background. Let us say there are six or seven siblings, and one is the eldest, and there is not enough money in the household to even educate the entire line. Then yes, you do want to have some money with you so that the genuine financial needs can be taken care of. But how much money is that? Do you really have to sell yourself away for the sake of that much money? Please tell me.
Is that really so big an ask that you cannot meet it without keeping yourself on mortgage? Mortgaging is the last resort, is it not? When an extreme responsibility arises, people often go and sell their kidneys. But that is the rarest of rare cases and probably illegal too. We cannot talk of that as something natural. Are you getting it? Please be very, very careful before accepting something as your responsibility, and once you do accept something as your responsibility, live up to it, be fully committed to it. Otherwise, you will be carrying a thousand responsibilities and just tolerating them somehow — a thousand responsibilities and commitment to none — always wishing in your heart that somehow those responsibilities could be reduced.
Have you not seen such people? They carry so much load, and they are always cribbing. "This I have to do. I am responsible for this. I have to be responsible for that. Like that, like that.” The quintessential housewife, from morning till evening, "I am only cooking this, that, I am responsible for the kids, for the in-laws, for the husband, and for that entire extended field of relatives," always cribbing, committed to no single task, and in spite of all this never able to boldly and bravely drop even a single responsibility. She will do everything and keep cribbing, and then everything will be done in a lukewarm way, right? Or the unwilling employee.
Think of the unwilling employee. She has accepted a job just because she was told, "You need to have this job to take care of your personal responsibilities." So she goes ahead and accepts a job, a job having no heart, a job to which she is not committed at all, a job to which she cannot relate at all. Every day she shows up at the office one hour late, and the boss screams at her. The entire day she is dreaming of this or that because she is just not in the work continuously. She is looking at the calendar and the clock, "When would it turn six? When would it be the 30th of the month so I can get the salary check?" Do you want that kind of life? This is what happens when you take up fake responsibilities.
Being responsible is wonderful. But all responsibility must be chosen with great care.
And once it is chosen, we said remain put. Then there has to be total love, total commitment. Go for something that has totality. Ifs and buts bring in a lot of conditionality, a lot of relativity, and all that is not good to live with. You will not enjoy it. Don't you really want to enjoy life? That requires boldness, and that requires deep love. You are young. You are just stepping into it. You cannot allow yourself to be handcuffed right at the beginning. How will you fly then?
