A discussion series excerpted from my book: The Competence Myth: Why Your Technical Skills Are No Longer Enough and What You Can Do About It. Chapter 1: "Living Your Life with Passion",
am an engineer, and I love technology. So it’s fair to say that I am passionate about the pursuit of knowledge, insight, and technical expertise. But no matter how much I love it, I also realize there’s world of human connections, interactions, and experiences beyond the lab. That world has the capacity to feed my soul in ways technology simply cannot. It’s the wondrous and endlessly inspiring art of humanity. In my case, I’m not choosing one over the other. I want both! I want to fully enjoy both worlds.
As technical professionals, a lot of us do what we do each day because we think we have to, or maybe we’re expected to. But does it make us happy? For most of us, there came a time in our lives when we put aside our childhood dreams and grew up. We put aside our fondest desires and things that make us happy while we concentrated on education, raising a family, and making a living. Ironically, we probably sought to save enough money to someday retire, and then we’d finally be able to do what we really want. In most regards, we’ve probably succeeded, we got the job, maybe the house, the car, the dog, and the picket fence. But still, we’re missing an important measure of fulfillment because we know there’s something more out there. Make this the day you start living your life with passion!
Sooner or later, most people discover that financial success does not necessarily bring total happiness. Although I would personally like someday to be so disgustingly rich that I can dispel that notion once and for all! But seriously, think about it. What would your world be like if you could be financially stable, like most engineers and live a life filled with significance and joy? What if you could feel passionate about each day?
The good news is that it’s possible! Next time, let’s talk more about how.
Link to Can You Engineer Passion? (part 1 of 5)
L. Eric Culverson, eric@technically-speaking.com, is author of The Competence Myth, President of Technically Speaking, Inc., technically-speaking.com, and conducts interactive communication workshops for engineers. For more information, visit TheCompetenceMyth.com. Follow me on Twitter @ericculverson