The Balancing Act

I love cycling. I have been riding bikes ever since I was three. As a toddler, you start off with tricycles, then move on to bigger bikes with small support wheels attached to keep the bike steady till you are able to balance it on your own. But ever since I started watching Disney cartoons, I was fascinated with unicycles!

 

Watching my favourite character pedal down the streets on a unicycle, hands-free, taking turns with a flick of the hips, all of that while making it look cool on-screen certainly did a number on me while growing up. It was dangerous of course. There was nothing to fall back on, terribly tough to balance the ensemble, and no way to stop without getting off the bike. That is probably why we don’t see unicycles a lot nowadays. People always want something to provide them with stability. A Plan B for breathing space in case Plan A fails. The rear wheel provided peace of mind whereas the front wheel allowed to pick the direction.

 

The same relationship exists between our passion and career.

 

"Do what you love, Love what you do" is a philosophy thrown around very often. Another would be "Do what you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life". Notice how neither of the two says "Do only what you love"?

 

Ask yourself this,

 

 "Why do I dislike my job?"

 

More often than not the reason is that you feel bored to death by it. And this is irrespective of the pay package. I have come across street sign painters who love their job and look forward to it every day, and hotshot venture capitalists who don’t. The pay package, even though is a driving force while choosing the job, is not when sustenance is at stake. Your job at hand is always your biggest compensation!

 

The next question,

 

"Why do I feel bored at my job?"

 

Because it is repetitive! You do the same chores day in and day out. Sure you can experiment. Spice things up a little. But no matter how much a mechanic tries to come up with out of the box ideas, at the end of the day he will still be repairing cars. The process, he can tinker with, the end result remains the same. Unless he switches the job and tries something completely different.

 

Would one be more comfortable switching careers, or switching their passion? The former is something you do after acquiring the prerequisite skills, the latter is a function of your consciousness - it is who you are and have always been, and can seldom be altered or controlled.

 

Your passion acts as the front wheel, helping you out with directions while navigating through the many turns and obstacles life throws at you, whilst your career provides the stability of the rear wheel. But it also serves another purpose - tempo. Notice how in most cases it is only the rear wheel that is attached to the pedals? You can pedal as fast as you can, but sans the rear wheel, the front wheel is going nowhere. The better the rear wheel is equipped for the type of journey at hand, the lesser time you spend in transit. Again, even with the rear wheel going all guns blazing, if the front wheel is pointed in the wrong direction, will you even reach the destination you intended to in the first place?

 

Both the above questions are important, but not as much as the third one,

 

"Do my wheels match?"

 

Purchasing a bike is easy, you get a standard set of wheels for the bike size. Both the wheels are generally more or less of similar dimensions. Building one on your own requires a bit of background work. You can go creative and have a smaller rear wheel, and a humongous front one, or the vice-versa for argument's sake. Lo and behold! You have got yourself something that looks like a pretty unique bike, but one that won't be moving very much! The art lies in understanding what the purpose of your bike is, knowing what your gut says about the size of the front wheel, and then picking up the rear one accordingly. If your passion is to make the best food in the world or to travel all corners of the Earth, your rear wheel needs to be befitting. If the current one does not match the criteria, a swap should never be out of the question!

 

Another critical thing to look at is the linkage. Remember how the front wheel decides the direction and the rear one follows? If your wheels are loosely attached to each other, the rear one takes some time in getting the bearings adjusted. Too tightly connected, and the rear follows the front into the ditch - not much safety that it could provide in that case! Your passion and career must incline with each other so that they don’t act as mutual distractions, and yet have a clear distinction between them to separate out your personal and professional spheres.

 

All of this brings us to the closing question,

 

"Am I ready to ride?"

 

 Well, if your wheels are sorted, you sure are my friend!