THE CHALLENGE

In a world that's becoming more technological with jobs for human beings becoming less available, it is more important than ever to start early to discover what you are meant to be. There seems to be a de-emphasizing in the Liberal Arts and a strong focus on technology so that parents are guiding their children in that direction in order to assure them of a likely career when they graduate college. That is, IF college is available to them.

There was a New York Times article titled "Follow A Career Passion? Let It Follow You." A Professor at Georgetown University claims one should ignore one's passion and instead build the skills needed for certain available jobs. He claims even if you're not happy and struggling with the position, you'll grow to love it. He states further that Passion is not something you follow, it's something that will follow you as you put in the hard work to become valuable to the world.

This Professor's own personal choices were to either accept a job at Microsoft, go to the computer science doctoral program at MIT or continue his non-fiction writing career. He claims he developed his skills for all three, then became passionate about them.

I question this. Since all three of his choices are in the field of technology, I propose that he was actually following his passion, not the other way around. He obviously needed to be in the technical world, be it at MIT, Microsoft or writing about technology. Therefore, he listened to his inner voice and no matter what his choice, he was meant to be in the field of technology...his passion.

Now I don't doubt that children born today seem to be equipped with a knowledge about technology.  Very young children appear to be drawn to pushing buttons on play telephones, play computers and play tablets, along with an innate knowledge of what to do with them. Just look at the many grandparents struggling to understand how these devices work and need their grandchildren to teach them. 7 year olds are helping 70 year olds understand technology. So perhaps the new generations are innately equipped for a world of machines. If so, perhaps their inner voices will drive them in that direction.

However, I do fear that we could end up with generations of people ignoring a different heart's desire in order to take a job, any job, to make money. I can't imagine those with strong creative impulses and artistic natures will be a thing of the past. The creative urge has been strong in humans since cave-man days.