Finding your passion is not easy

"Chase your dreams" or "pursue your passion" are cliches that are used quite routinely. They are based on an important assumption that people already know what is their passion or that people have only one dream to chase. However, the situation is not that simple for most people. Often, it is not easy for most people to decide what is their real passion or which dream they should chase. This is the reason we see many people enrolled in courses and chasing degrees for which they have to study subjects they utterly dislike or hate just because someone told them that it would provide them a well-paying stable job. We see many people doing the job they dislike just because they think they don't have any other choice or they believe that it is too late to change. So, what is the solution to this dilemma? Is there any easy way where a person can figure out what is their real passion or which dream is worth chasing? The simple answer is, NO.

For most people, there is no easy way to find out what is our real passion or which dream we really want to chase. Some people figure out very early in their lives what they want to become and dedicate all their attention and efforts towards that pursuit. They do not care about success or failure as the journey to chase that target itself is fulfilling for them. This is great if it happens. If the journey itself is rewarding and enjoyable then who cares what is the ultimate result. Success is a bonus but not a reward in itself for them. But what if we do not know? Then, we need to take a more analytical approach. First, look carefully at your skillset, things at which you are good, things which you can learn easily and perform well. This is important to know because everybody might want to become an actor or a  football or basketball player, but everybody is not good at it. If we do not have the skills to perform a task or are not willing to put enough effort into learning it then there is no point in dreaming about it. Another important thing to remember is, that just dreams or passion is not enough, it requires tremendous hard work and commitment to achieve something great no matter how passionate you are about that thing. There is no substitute for hard work.

Another thing one can do is to ask for advice. Talk with people who you think understand you and care about you. Ask them what they think might be a good profession for you, seek opinions from multiple reliable sources to get a diverse opinion, and then try to decide. Keep in mind that all this does not guarantee that you will find a cause to which you will stick for the rest of your life. Sometimes we like something but over time lose interest. We might feel that the field which we chose is not interesting anymore or we are interested in something else. If this happens, we should not hesitate to make efforts to change. It might be tough or require a significant amount of effort and involve many challenges but as I said before, such a rewarding journey might be a worthy endeavor. No matter what we decide to do, we should be able to enjoy it, and we should feel excited about it. Of course, there are going to be days where we will feel lazy, bored, and frustrated, it is a part of every profession, but in general, we should feel good about our profession. We should feel excited about going to work. We should not be dragging ourselves to work every day. We spend quite a significant portion of our lives performing in our profession, so why not have fun while working. This will not only add happiness to our personal lives but also improve our professional lives. It is true that finding our passion and sticking to it is not easy, but it is not as difficult as it sounds, just give it a try.

Thanks for reading and please share your opinion about this topic. 

East Rock Cricket - A wonderful chapter of my life

Cricket is my favorite sport, it may not be surprising to know as I am an Indian and I guess the whole world knows India's obsession with this sport. As a child, I played this game a lot, in our chawl we used to have daily games where kids used to make two teams and play a cricket match. We also used to have matches between teams from different neighborhoods, price money used to to 50 paisa or one rupee, or the winner used to get the ball which we used to buy by collecting the money and playing the match. There used to be rivalries between teams and we also had some. Some teams were really strong and we used to dream to beat them and some used to dream to beat us. We both used to manage to fulfill our dreams once in a while, it used to be a celebration time and we used to talk about our heroic efforts for weeks. Many of these matches used to be very high-octane drama with lots of arguments over no ball or wide ball, but runouts used to be the real event killer, many times match was forced to be abandoned as some controversial run-out decisions used to create so much chaos and with no team willing to yield an inch, match used to end without any result. But even after all this there used to be another match on next Sunday with the same team. This phase of my life was really memorable, but after I finished school it all stopped, we all friends from our chawl went in different directions. I went to college and none of my chawl friends joined me there, so it all ended.

During my college and PhD, we used to play yearly tennis ball tournaments, and I used to be a part of my class or department team. I always enjoyed playing a team sport, whether it is Kabaddi or Cricket or Khokho, I love all team sports. One beautiful aspect of cricket is that almost anyone can play this game: short or tall, thin or chubby, fast or slow, doesn't matter, anyone can be a part of a team and have fun. Honestly, I am not that talented cricketer, I never got any official training to play this sport as my parents couldn't afford it. I used to be a wicketkeeper for our chawl team, my running between the wicket is good and I consider myself a very dedicated and hard-working fielder. I get very upset whenever I drop a catch or allow an extra run. I play hard for my team to win and like to be on the winning side, but that doesn't happen all the time and it is a part and parcel of any sportsperson's life.

After coming to the US I never got a chance to play cricket until I met with some cricket-enthusiastic Yale undergraduates. My friend Vishnu was very instrumental in all this. I really enjoyed their company and loved their enthusiasm for the game of cricket. Then East Rock cricket happened, every weekend Saturday and Sunday from 8 AM to 10 AM was booked for cricket. It all started with 5-6 enthusiastic Yale postdocs and then it grew from there. We played sometimes under ideal and many times under not-so-ideal ground conditions. Our grounds used to have so many tall trees, we call them Jonty Rhodes (a very dynamic and phenomenal South African fielder). Many superb shots which might have gone to six on any other ground used to land right in front of the bowler because of those trees, but still I loved every bit of it. And yes, there used to to taunts, arguments, fights, and drama, and many times I used to be a part of this commotion. Honestly, it used to remind me of my chawl days, the only difference was the language, it used to happen in Marathi at that time and here at East Rock, it was a mixture of Hindi and English. Most of these arguments used to be pointless with no right or wrong side, they all used to happen in the heat of the moment, and there used to be lots of anger and frustration, but there never used to be any malice or hate in it.

I don't know when, how, and why, but slowly something changed either in me or in the environment of East Rock cricket. Arguments started getting personal, and winning the game became more important than giving everyone a chance to play this amazing game. Of course, winning is an important aspect of any game, so there is nothing wrong in putting on a fierce fight to win any game, but that should not involve insulting any individual, especially for their intent, skills, and physique. I am a big supporter of free speech, so I cannot complain about what someone should say and shouldn't. Playing to win at any cost might be a good approach for competitions like the World Cup, but for me winning is just one part of recreational games, it is a bonus. I like to play some really good competitive sports in a fun and supportive environment.

I don't play cricket for fitness, for this I can do many more things which are more efficient and kind to my body compared to cricket. I really enjoyed this journey. I suggest any cricket enthusiast living in and around New Haven to join this amazing group and enjoy the great game of cricket. I am sure that they all will love the drama which also comes with it. I don't think I can completely stop playing cricket or stop visiting the East Rock cricket team, I am too attached to them and cricket. It was like a serious commitment for me for the last few years, my weekend plans used to revolve around it, but now it won't be the case. Carry on the baton guys, people come and people go, but the show must go on and you guys know that we all put on an amazing show, so keep it up.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright : Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Religion and terrorism

The issue of terrorism is not new to humans, our society has dealt with various forms of terrorism since its existence. The most ugly form of terrorism is violence inflicted on innocent people, but it can also manifest itself in so many other forms which are equally detrimental. There is no doubt that any form of terrorism is harmful to any society or civilization. The arms and weapons industry is a huge player in this area and it has a tremendous influence on how world politics works, the revenue of this industry depends on feelings of fear and there is nothing better than terrorism to infuse this feeling among people of any country. Any society suffering from any form of terrorism faces so many problems, first of all day-to-day lives of its citizens are severely affected in many ways, many people live in constant fear of attack and it creates feelings of insecurity and distrust among its people. All these things are not signs of a healthy society, they affect its growth, stability, and productivity. So, it is always better to address problems related to any sort of terrorism on a priority basis. Ignoring such problems doesn't make them go away on its own, rather they can give rise to so many other problems which can be very damaging to any country in the long run.

Many countries have been battling with the issue of terrorism in various forms for years. As an Indian, I know very well how it feels to live in a country that is at the receiving end of terrorist attacks regularly. The situation in India is not as bad as many other places in the world, but still one can feel the heat of terrorism. People try to label these acts of terrorism in so many ways, many times these terrorist groups label themselves, they choose to attach themselves to certain regions, ethnic groups, or religions to create an impression that they are fighting for that particular group's interests. In the last few years, there has been increasing use of terms like "Islamic terrorism" all over the world or "saffron terrorism" in India. These terms try to link some particular religion with terrorist activities happening in that region. The clear intention behind this is to indicate that that particular religion is used as an instrument to incite people to perform acts of terrorism. So, the question we need to ask is, is there any relationship between religion and terrorism? Especially, when almost everyone claims that all religions teach peace, why there is so much hatred and violence in the name of religion? Why are people willing to kill each other in the name of religion? Is this a fault of those people or does religion give them this opportunity by being ambiguous about the use of violence? Is it possible that in reality, almost all religions teach both, hate and love, peace and violence? When such extreme options are available people conveniently use the one that suits them to justify their actions of love as well as hatred and violence. I know some of these questions might make some people feel very uncomfortable and might even offend some devoted followers of religion, but nevertheless, we need to ask them. It seems people very easily get offended nowadays, I was surprised to hear that speakers need to give a "trigger warning" before saying anything that might be contrary to some popular belief or against some widely accepted ideology. But we need to ask these questions so that people can understand about this very complicated and sensitive issue. Religion or aspects are religion are regularly exploited to propagate terrorism, therefore, we all should be very careful in defending everything associated with religion, especially, the aspects that are used to trigger violent reactions should be recognized and appropriately handled on intellectual and social levels.

Most religions have gone through various forms of struggles to establish themselves in this world, one can easily read the history of different religions on the internet. Some religions originated in a very hostile environment and had to fight bloody wars to defeat their enemies and establish their presence. This might be the reason most of them include recommendations to fight wars against their opponents (enemies) until the opponents are wiped out from that region. These recommendations might have been necessary at that time as that was the time of the "might is right" era, but such conditions don't exist anymore. Most of us now understand that all these religions are like personal choices and different people can have different religions as it suits their requirements and needs. Most of us also understand that there is no imminent threat to any religion in most countries. Most civilized countries offer their residents the right to practice any religion of their choice. If that particular religion is relevant and useful it will survive, and if not, it will fade away with time. This is a simple rule of the market, if the product is popular and sellable it will stay in the market or something else will replace it. The point I am trying to make is, that any violence propagated in the name of some religion is under attack or in extreme danger is a false narrative and a lame attempt to justify the hatred and violence.

Also, every religion needs to own things happening in its name, it doesn't matter if they are good, bad, or ugly, they need to take responsibility for all these things. The propagators and followers of any religion can not be selective in only owning good things about their own religion. They just can't only talk about good things about their religion and purposely ignore all the bad and ugly things. This is called hypocrisy, where someone tries to project only one side conveniently ignoring other sides as they don't suit their purpose. At least, violence in the name of religion must be confronted in the strongest possible terms by people of that religion to demonstrate that they don't support any violence in the name of their religion. Historically, every major religion has been used to commit autocracies on nonbelievers at some point in time. Some sort of discrimination was practiced or still is in practice against nonbelievers of all religions. Rather than accepting these things, various explanations are offered to justify these acts either directly or indirectly. This is one of the reasons why most people don't hesitate to justify violence in the name of their own religion as almost everyone other religion has done it. As others have done it, so, why not us, this is the simple but ridiculous logic they follow. Many of these heinous acts get some sort of legitimacy if they are committed in the name of some religion. 

It seems religion can generate extremely good or extremely bad emotions in people. Some groups use both these extremes to serve the purpose of their organizations. But the problem is most followers are really prompt and attentive in praising good deeds by people from their own religion, but at the same time, they are hesitant or completely reluctant to accept many bad acts committed in the name of their religion. People need to own these bad acts and criticize them in the strongest terms if they care about their religion. Strong criticism from outside of that religion doesn't act as a deterrent, it helps to radicalize some of its supporters and it helps the purpose of groups who want to misuse that religion. Because no religion takes criticism from outsiders very kindly, because it is assumed that outsiders will criticize mainly out of their hatred or jealousy. This is why strong criticism must come from within the same religion, and then only any positive reform is possible. Until these things start happening on a large scale, religion will be vulnerable to misuse by some bigots from their own fraternity. Today it is Islam, tomorrow it might be something else, or even some new religion. Our social and political class needs to show courage and commitment to address this problem without getting into a trap of not hurting anyone's sentiment type of mentality. Please remember that as most saints belong to some religion, most terrorists claim to belong to some religion and they make their motive clear. As religion owns these saints, they need to own these terrorists and take up the challenge of refuting their narrative assertively, a meek denial or refusal won't work. It is the job of everyone to reject these violent ideas no matter which holy book or religion is used to justify them. Unless we all unite to fight this evil, we will continue to suffer because of it, so, let's unite and fight this evil of terrorism together.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]