The Last Alchemist (Part 2) – How To Find Your Passion

When I visit local bookstores, I can’t help but to notice the numerous books on how to seek the purpose of life, how to make life meaningful and how to rekindle the fire within.

Even though I am into the ‘everything is meaningless’ camp (click here for the post), as a gap filler, I guess the missing part is passion.

What is passion and how does one find it?

Let’s start this serious topic like how we always do it – digressing. Oh yeah.

I think that genius baby they call Steve Jobs had a wonderful quote like stay young, stay fooling or something along the line.

Many people loved him, rightly or wrongly.

My question is, say of the 100 who loved him, how many actually loved him because (a) he created iphone and therefore whatever he said is gold or (b) he said something that’s gold and he was the guy who created iphone.

The distinction is very important because reaching at the same outcome (he’s wise) differently would determine whether one is fooled by randomness along the way. (Click here for the relevant post). Why? Because there’s an element of chance, i.e. risk. And deciding based on outcome would mean that chance is involved. If we are choosing based on chance, then it only means we are choosing randomly. If we were to rerun history, will Steve Jobs still be Steve Jobs or will it be another person?

From Wikipedia, definition of outcome bias – One will often judge a past decision by its ultimate outcome instead of based on the quality of the decision at the time it was made, given what was known at that time. 

So how sour grape dimpledbrain?

Don’t build your mind based on mainstream thinking. One will be susceptible to outcome bias. Decide what is true based on the merits of the argument itself.

So how do we find our passion? The answer, I’m absolutely convinced, can be found inside a little book called Mindfire Big Ideas for Curious Minds by Scott Berkun. This is no Harvard Business Review and it’s not a bestseller yet. So there is no outcome bias. There is no waterfall chart with McKinsey blue font. It’s not rocket science enough.

It’s safe.

Come to papa.

But how do we find our passion, you ask? “Pick something. Do it with all your heart. If you can’t keep your heart in it, do something else. Repeat.” That’s blatantly plagiarising Scott Berkun anyway.

If we are able to choose something that is not mainstream and we are able to convince ourselves of its merits, it then follows that there must be some truth in it. I’m referring largely to philosophies in life because it’s usually just deciding between A or B, but said by Mr Famous or Mr Not So Famous. Choose A OR B said by Mr Not So Famous.

Jokes aside, one of the aspirations of this blog is to conceptualize frameworks useful for the purpose of decision making. It’s my belief and conviction that we can have an ultimate framework for everything, i.e. cheapen experience that comes with age. Shit, doesn’t this sound like Stephen Hawking’s Theory of Everything?

The summary of what’s useful:

(1)  Be aware of the hidden influence of outcome bias in our decision making. Will we still say the same thing if otherwise?

(2) That the majority view trumping the minority view doesn’t automatically bestow it the Ultimate Truth Award. Does everyone says so sound familiar? It’s my hope that such framework can be used to discuss important issues.

(3) Pick something and do it with all your heart. Repeat. Do not cruise one’s life away. Overcome the fear of success.