I read an article in the Harvard Business Review and it got me thinking about life, our career choices, and our passions. When I watch shows like MasterChef I am always amazed at how many of these amazing home chefs have great jobs/careers. Many of them are professionals – lawyers, doctors, etc. Many of them have very successful businesses and are financially well off. But all these people have one thing in common – they love cooking. They are passionate about cooking – to the point that they have signed up for a show that might jump start their new career as a chef. Without this show many of these people will continue to be great home chefs but their daily job/career will probably remain the one that they chose, or was chosen for them, during their university years. But for many contestants, even if they don’t win, they go through a mind shift and realize that this passion or love is what they want to do in life. Why does it take a show to make them realize this? Why do we get stuck in a life that maybe we don’t want? Why is it that once we acquire a career its so hard to step away from it?
In the article the author, Don Cable, argues that people shouldn’t’ be following their passions or bliss but their blisters. People should invest their energy, passion, and love into the things that “you always come back to – eventually moving past the blister age – into the toughened skin stage”. At the end of the article he mentions the Japanese term, Wabi-sabi, and defines it as the “beauty caused by the personalized texture you have earned and the places you are not quite symmetrical”. Think back to those people who have a desire and need to cook, to create beautiful meals, and to transform food into something like a work of art. But their real jobs are doctors, lawyers, vets, etc. In these areas they are “perfect’ – they understand and can control their world. But in the world of cooking they are “imperfect”. Another way of looking at Wabi-sabi is “embracing the perfection of being imperfectly you”. I think this is hard for people, very hard. How do you leave a life of control and security to a life of chance and imperfection? So much insecurity in this and people, who are conditioned to avoid this things, work hard to avoid these things. But this is where people find the most satisfaction and self-worth once they get there. The big question is how do we get people to follow their blisters in a world that shuns imperfection?