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This note was published on 14 May 2023, written by Shrikant Patil, co-founder of GenWise. In this post, Shrikant gives young people a guide on how to discover their self expression, what truly motivates them. This is contrasted to passions, which keep changing as we grow. We are republishing it here for our community at Gifted World to learn and reflect from.
I am the co founder of GenWise which is motivated by the mission to create living and learning experiences that trigger the spark of life long learning. Every summer, we do two courses for gifted students in grades 6-10, one in May and the other in July. This year we introduced a course ‘ Residential Internships’ for students in grades 11 and 12. This period of the child finishing grade 10 upto grade 12 and until one secures admission is not a pleasant one for the child or the parent. The objective of the course is to give clarity about the various options available and to mitigate ‘FOMO”, the fear of missing out. Most education companies and EdTech business models thrive and flourish on surfing FOMO or inducing it. We at GenWise want to mitigate this FOMO and prepare them with information and support to navigate this arduous phase of life.
I conceptualized, structured and delivered the course. I take full responsibility for the praises and brick bats from those who have taken this course.
Before the course started, I had a video conference with each child and parent to understand the family and child better. The conversations I had was the motivation for my essay coupled with the sole purpose of helping all students and their parents discover their self expression in life. Even more important is to have a purpose in life that will motivate you through thick and thin.
Discover your Self Expression
‘Follow your passion’ is a frequently shared piece of advice. We at @genwise strongly believe that, more than passion, a student should follow their self-expression. Why self-expression? When you follow your self-expression, despite the challenging and tedious nature of work you will always be energized, and this energy is continuously replenished. In most other situations, you will be extremely tired.
The passion, in ‘following your passion’, is largely driven by interest. This interest is mostly floating and is largely influenced by the environment and current trends. Couple of years ago, it was all data science, then fintech and today it is all about AI. Following your passion can be very misleading, many times it leads you to nowhere and a permanent state of unhappiness. Desire is born out of a passionate mind, the more you feed it, the stronger it grows, and when the desire is unfulfilled it agitates the mind.
From an early age, everyone demonstrates a certain inclination to a particular field- maybe painting, music, the languages, mathematics, etc. and this inclination is their svadharma. As you grow, you should be aware of your self-expression and find a vocation that leverages your svadharma to the fullest. In practising this vocation you will prosper and find peace, happiness and a limitless source of energy. If you align your creative urge and your various pursuits such as teaching, dancing, computer repair, computer programming, gaming you will have a vast reservoir of energy to draw from. Every student should pay close attention to which things come easier to them. Some will take naturally to Maths, some to languages, some to social science. Students need to keep searching, find areas they are good at and discover their self-expression also known as Iccha Shakti. The targets of your passion will keep changing but your self-expression is permanent and an integral part of you.
The exact opposite of svadharma is paradharma which literally means ‘opposite nature’. That which opposes your natural tendencies, inclinations, likes and preferences. Many times parents take a position of what their children should do. A very common example is a doctor pushing her son or daughter to become a doctor because the parents have built a lucrative practice. This is also very common in the case of family businesses. This is suited to the parent’s convenience and we have children who live very prosperous lives, with best in class creature comforts but very unhappy lives. The parents are trying to preserve their franchise, or trying to achieve what they could not, bottom line the children are miserable.
If you search around carefully, you will find people who demonstrate infinite stamina in their chosen profession. These individuals are in tune with their self-expression and motivated by a higher sense of purpose. A personal example in my life was my uncle Prof S.H. Patil, emeritus professor of Physics at IIT Bombay. In his career spanning over 50 years, he would go to office at 9 am, come back home at 9pm. My rebellious view was that he had nothing better to do than his Physics. When I asked him a couple of times what he does in office the whole day, he would say that he was privileged to work in the area of Physics, the freedom to pursue the research of his choice and the opportunity to teach the brightest students in India. I would be exhausted after reading a few pages of Resnick and Halliday, so relating to what he was saying was like kissing through glass. Prof Patil had found his self-expression in Physics, with a sense of purpose to share his knowledge with young bright students, and thus drew upon an unlimited source of energy to work 12 hours a day, six days a week with quick breaks for lunch and a small snack at tea time. This schedule repeated for 50 plus years and I can’t recall him taking a vacation. For many the schedule was brutal, for him it was sheer pleasure. For the passionate, the idea of taking a vacation is to chill and recharge your batteries. Fate was not kind to him and today he is an advanced Alzheimer’s patient. When he had trouble recognizing his own family, complex equations in Physics kept flowing via his elegant fountain pen. When we flow in accordance to our nature, we grow from within.
I have had the good fortune to work with some karma yogis like Prof S.H. Patil. One is Sridhar Rajagopalan, founder Educational Initiatives who chucked up his lucrative corporate job in IBM, dedicated his life to primary education driven by the purpose to create a world where children everywhere are learning with understanding. Another is Rajesh Jain who in the year 1999, at the age of 32, sold his company for INR 500 cr; it was a time when the internet was just starting up. Post the sale he founded a new company, Netcore, and is driven by the mission to improve India’s standing in the world order through technology. When we follow what comes naturally to us, it brings us abundance and prosperity.
As we navigate the 21st century, where trends are changing every couple of years, discovering your self-expression or creative urgeis an absolute must. The desire to make something beautiful is inside each of us, coupled with being agile, resilient and inspired by a higher purpose in life, the chances of living a happy and a fulfilling life are high. There is an air which belongs to the figure and talents of each individual. Personalities who draw on their svadharma are charismatic, because they are extremely comfortable under their own skin. So it is a must to discover what is natural to us, never abandon it and make it as perfect as we can. That is why authenticity is irresistible.
In closing I would like to leave with some words of wisdom by Christopher Wallis, ‘Thus a Yogi, must find a way to express his innate nature through his career and life activities, and if he cannot, he must change them or become internally desiccated, devoid of juice and sweetness in life.’
