Passion

When my school teacher asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up, I told the class that I wanted to do something that will make me happy. “Well, what makes you happy?” my teacher asked. Frankly, I have no idea what makes me happy at that time.

“Finding your passion” would become one of the important things that I will ponder about in the following years. What do people mean when they say “never give up on their dreams” when most people do not know what they are dreaming about. For those who found out what their dream jobs are, it will most likely remain as a “dream” job. What people don’t realise is that the problem is never about the passion.

It’s about priorities. The problem lies with your fear, your reception, your attitude. The problem with most people is that they expect to love their jobs 24/7 and clocking 12 hour work days with zero complaints. What’s wrong with working in an okay job that pays decent salary while finding your passion on the side? You have to find a balance between expectations and reality.

I didn’t realized my passion for investing in equities, not just any kind of investing but value investing, until I was doing it for two years. I was addicted to spending my free time to read research reports, annual reports and value investing books. I guess that when you enjoy doing something, chances are that you will become passionate about it. It didn’t occur to me that doing all these research all day was not something that others considered fun and enjoyable.

Perhaps there is something that you are already doing that most people don’t find it fun or easy, but to you, it is so natural that you could not even imagine it being otherwise. And this is probably what you should be doing. You don’t go to a playground and look for fun. You just go out and play and have fun. Chances are, you are already enjoying something, you enjoy many things but you just choose to ignore them.

Originally published at http://themosspiglets.com on April 18, 2019.