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In This Episode
Is it too late to follow a dream?
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Show Credits
Main show hosted, produced, mixed, edited & music by Mark.
BlogScript
The path before you is bountiful. It’s exotic and ever changing. As you travel this path and its winding roads, in your hands is a walking stick. Fashioned from a branch at the fork in the road. You use this stick. This broken branch. You use it to lift boulders, dig trenches, and to keep you upright in times of need.
Then there is a moment, a moment in which you find you need more. You notice the stick. This branch, that you had longed believe to be another limb, can be reinforced. It can be stronger. Then you wonder… how long have I had this? How long has this held me up?
As you gaze upon this branch, you look up to find yourself back at the fork in the road. Back at the tree from which the branch fell. The new path looks curious but before you continue, you rest. You drink the shade the tree provides and steady yourself for the paths ahead.
You ask yourself—Is it too late to pursue a path that is so different from that I have traveled?
Is it too late to pursue a dream?
<intro music>
Dreams
Are we too old for them?
If you are like me, then you may have found yourself mired in the thoughts and opinions of others to choose something…practical.
And you bend.
Years of pressure enforces its will upon you and you go down a path that is still exciting, but not the one you love.
Some of us are lucky and they continue down their path of interests. Honing their skills. Steadily improving.
Others find their lost passion but are stuck in discerning if it’s too late.
The unfortunate few, never find it.
And thus, I belong to the group that wondered if its too late to follow a dream.
And you might wonder, how do you find this elusive dream?
It may come slowly. It may be something that has always been with you but you’ve abandoned it to pursue another path. For me, it was writing and design. That was the thing I enjoyed but left to follow tech. Although, I enjoy tech, it was never a passion. Still, the thing I relied on for many tech related projects, when given the chance, was writing and design. As I didn’t pursue either to study the technical foundation, I was still “OK” at them, if you ask me.
It wouldn’t be until nearly two decades later that I recognize what I liked most about my work. What I liked most about the projects I worked on. They all came to writing, and design.
I then wondered if it would be too late to pursue a career using both? To pursue a passion of both?
While I undergo training for the day career to learn and study the technical foundations of Graphic and UX Design as well as technical writing, I have pursued, with resounding clarity, a life long path in writing.
Enter Ikigai
At the time of discovering the two things I did in my career that I liked best were writing and design, I was introduced to Ikigai.
Ikigai is a japanese concept meaning “a reason for being”. My introduction to this was from Chris Do of The Futur. Your ikigai is a convergence of 4 things centering your passion, mission, vocation and profession.
To detail, your passion is what you love, your mission is what the world needs, your vocation is what you are good at, and your profession is what you get paid for.
In each of these 4 columns I wrote down everything that came to mind. In doing so I was confronted with the things I loved doing and would do if I had no worries of income. These things meshed between each column and I contrasted with other things such as the question I had posed in a previous episode – what would I regret not having done when I’m 80?
The Dream
I now know, fully, what I have a passion to do. What I enjoy to do. What I can be paid to do.
The shackles have fallen and I am left a fool wondering how I could be so convinced to travel so far from that lost passion. Though, sometimes we find that we need life to happen before we can find our true course.
In doing so, I’ve delved into the world of writing. Reading more to analyze the texts and structure, writing more, to practice and execute, and training to learn the ins and outs of publishing and writing careers. Now, after nearly two decades, do my passion and career objects align.
And so I turn to you. You who may also be at a fork in the road, curious if this new untraveled path will lead you astray. You, who wonder if it is too late to choose something new. Too late to learn and grow and embrace your passion. To ride out the life you’ve built, and keep circling the same path.
To question is to break the shackles of others that have held you down all your life. To deny is to bind your own wrists. But if you need the key, the permission to be free then these words are for you:
No, you’re never to old to pursue your passion. Never to old to revel in the things you love. If it brings a smile to your face and good health into your life then pursue it with vigorous intent.
Else it will remain nothing more than a dream.
In Closing
That’s it for this episode. Or all that I had to say on the matter, or rather, inspired to say at that moment in time. If only I knew the things I knew 20 years ago.
Join us next episode for the August monthly update.
Until next time
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