The Element - How Finding your passion changes everything

Every day I ask myself several questions – Am I satisfied with my day? Do I like my work? Did I enjoy doing it? And like me there are several thousands of people who ask similar questions. Some of them may feel good about it and some of them will always feel restless and uncomfortable about it. There could be several reasons for why one is not feeling good about what he or she is doing. The question is - Are we really passionate enough to do ‘that’ job for our living? Do we have that ‘element’ in us to be in the ‘zone’ or the ‘flow’? 

In his book The Element, Sir Ken Robinson tries to answer some of the critical questions quoted above. He defines the Element as the meeting point between the natural aptitude and personal passion. It is the place where things you love to do and the things that you are good at come together. Being in your ‘element’, keeps you in the zone, or in the flow. It is something that when you are in your element, the activity gives you energy all the time and it does not take away your energy. Like a painter who will never get tired of painting and who will always have energy to paint what he or she likes; Or like a musician who will always in the zone of creating amazing music. 

The next question that comes to my mind is that ‘Do I have that Element in me?’ or have I identified my element? Or why am I not pursuing my passion and instead doing some lousy job that I do not like to do? Which is my zone? Is it painting? Or is it fixing my bike? Or is it travelling? Or writing? Or teaching? Or is it photography? 

Sir Ken Robinson, like all others who have quoted extensively, tries to convey the same message that we are all born with some amazing talents and capacities, but as we grow older we will lose the touch without talents. The much quoted saying by Albert Einstein ‘I was born intelligent, education ruined me’ becomes very much alive. Sir Ken Robinson too, blames and rightly points out at our stringent education system. He says schools educate creativity out of us. 

When I started reading the book, it sounded more like Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow – The Psychology of Optimal Experience. The chapter about ‘Being in the Zone’ talks very much about the book Flow. It was a great inspirational feeling while reading both these books. It challenges us to identify that element in us to keep ourselves happy in the zone. And it fights against the traditional education system that succeeded in limiting our knowledge and learning abilities. 

There are many inspiring stories in the book and every story has its message for you. Most the stories interestingly prove that in most of the cases education system never helped anyone reaching their element or finding their zone. For example Paul McCartney, Mick Fleetwood, Richard Branson, Matt Groening, Ewa Laurance and many more. The below story is one such eye opener. 

...there was an eight-year-old girl named Gillian who couldn’t sit still in class. Today, they might say she had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and give her Ritalin, Robinson says. A psychologist reached a different conclusion. 

“Gillian isn’t sick,” he said. “She’s a dancer. Take her to a dance school.” 

Gillian Lynne would become a soloist with the Royal Ballet and work with Andrew Lloyd Webber to create musicals such as “Cats” and “The Phantom of the Opera.” 

Some of the stories are very shocking and quite challenging to believe. Like Paulo Coelho’s story of going against with the family was very revealing. His parents believed that he would waste his life on writing that they repeatedly placed him in a psychiatric institution where he underwent shock therapy. But he never gave up and he has become one of the inspiring writers across the world. 

Robinson says don’t ask how intelligent you are. The correct question he says to ask is: How are you intelligent? And one more problem the author identifies with the traditional education system is that it trains you on being always ‘right’. It will not prepare you for being wrong or taking risks or trying out something new, he says. Also some of the stories give the message that our age is no barrier to finding our element. Benjamin Franklin invented the bifocal lens when he was 78 years; so as Agatha Christie who wrote the world’s longest play when she was 68 years. The message for me here is that we will always have our talents in us for a very long time and it is up to us to recover them by constantly exercising upon them. 

Some days back I was thinking about an interesting idea of coming up with an initiative of for school children that makes them realize or identify their passion. Like a factory where children are exposed to different kinds of experiments and at the end of it they would identify what they really like. I was discussing the same with a friend and we were brainstorming very deeply on this topic. I feel this is what missing in our education system. They will never try to make an effort in helping children finding their talent. Instead they will fill them up with existing knowledge and limit them with their own knowledge boundary. 

One more chapter that moved me very much is ‘For love or money’ where the author discusses about the Amateurs. I was in the zone while reading it and almost did an assessment on me while reading the chapter. It makes one realize how important hobbies are and how exactly an amateur with respect to a certain skill can come up with some amazing stuff that even a professional cannot do? And there are several examples quoted that make you wonder how can there be a world without amateurs? Some of the stories included are of Arthur C. Clarke, Susan Hendrickson, Tiff Wood, Khaled Hosseini and some others. All of them are true amateurs and have achieved greater results being in their elements. 

This book is a very simulating read for everyone. Every one of us should read this book and get to know how identifying our element transforms our lives. Reading this book can also leave you depressed, if you have not identified your element or you are fed up of what you are doing and struggling hard to find what you like. But still, reading this may help you out answering some of your queries and gives a lot back to you through those inspiring stories. 

End of the day, if you are not in the zone, step back and ask yourself – They all have it in them to be in their zone, do I have it in me? 

Read some of the excerpts from the book The Element here.

Link to the TED video of Sir Ken Robinson here. 

Book: The Element

Author: Sir Ken Robinson

Publisher: Penguin

Pages: 274

ISBN: 978-0-141-04525-2

Srikanth

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in the zone

Excerpt from the book The Element by Sir Ken Robinson

To be in the zone is to be in the deep heart of the Element. Doing what we love can involve all sorts of activities that are essential to the Element but are not the essense of it - things like studying, organizing, arranging, limbering up, etc. And even when we're doing the thing we love, there can be frustrations, disappointments, and times when it simply doesn't work or come together. But when it does, it transforms our experience of the Element. We become focused in intent. We live in the moment. We become lost in the experience and perform at our peak. Our breathing changes, our minds merge with our bodies, and we feel ourselves drawn effortlessly into the heart of the Element.

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Well, this is what Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls it as Flow. Here Sir Ken Robinson calls it as Zone. Being in the flow is  always a joyful experience. One forgets everything else other than what he or she is committed on doing. Be it a Painter, a Climber or a Surgeon; when they are in flow, they are at their best. 

Srik

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culture

Excerpts from the book flow by mihaly csikszentmihalyi


Describing the Indian tribes of British Columbia: 

The Shushwap region was and is considered by the Indian people to be a rich place: rich in salmon and game, rich in below-ground food resources such as tubers and roots - a plentiful land. In this region, the people would live in permanent village sites and exploit the environs for needed resources. They had elaborate technologies for very effectively using the resources of the environment, and perceived their lives as being good and rich. Yet, the elders said, at times the world became too predictable and the challenge began to go out of life. Without challenge, life had no meaning. 

So the elders, in their wisdom, would decide that the entire village should move, those moves occurring every 25 to 30 years. The entire population would move to a different part of the Shushwap land and there, they found challenge. There were new streams to figure out, new game trails to learn, new areas where the balsamroot would be plentiful. Now life would regain its meaning and be worth living. Everyone would feel rejuvenated and healthy. Incidentally, it also allowed exploited resources in one area to recover after years of harvesting...

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Well, I was thrilled reading this piece in the book flow. We always think about culture which has a major role to play in our lives to lead it meaningfully. It is so good to see the culture giving such an enrichment to the lives of the people. For them, without challenge, life has no meaning. And taking challenges often keeps us happy in whatever we do. 

Similarly there are so many cultures to quote; and the one I had experienced was the culture of the Tribes (called Soligas) of Chamarajanagar district. They plant a tree for every occasion; irrespective of whether it is good or bad. Their culture gives a complete meaning to what they contribute to the place they live in and they respect it. By doing so, they would reach the optimal experience in their lives. 

Such cultures have attained a good fit between the psychological needs of their people and the options available for their lives.

Srik

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a self

Excerpts from the book flow by mihaly csikszentmihalyi

"A self that is only differentiated - not integrated - may attain great individual accomplishments, but risks being mired in self-centered egotism. By the same token, a person whose self is based exclusively on integration will be connected and secure, but lack autonomous individuality. Only when a person invests equal amounts of psychic energy (attention) in these two processes and avoids both selfishness and conformity is the self likely to reflect complexity." - mihaly

a climber says "[there's] no place that more draws the best from human beings...[than] a mountaineering situation. No body hassles you to put your mind and body under tremendous stress to get to the top... Your comrades are there, but you all feel the same way anyway, you're all in it together. Who can you trust more in the twentieth century than these people? People after the same self-discipline as yourself, following the deeper commitment...A bond like that with other people is in itself is an ecstasy."

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as much as I agree to what the climber says, I can also feel the completeness in the self. It is the same  whenever I take risks in whatever I do. It is the equal amount of attention that I give to the differentiated self as 'me' and integrating with 'others' to stay connected. So there will be complete control over my consciousness which is unaltered by the external forces. 

and once I am out of this experience, of flow, 'I' feel more 'together' than before.

Srik

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experiencing the flow

Excerpts from the book flow by mihaly csikszentmihalyi

"Its exhilarating to come closer and closer to self-discipline. You make your body go and everything hurts; then you look back in awe at the self, at what you've done, it just blows your mind. It leads to ecstasy, to self-fulfillment. If you win these battles enough, that battle against yourself, at least for a moment, it becomes easier to win the battles in the world."

- a well known West Coast rock climber

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here, the battle is not really against the self, but against the entropy that brings disorder to my consciousness. As much as I establish control over my attention, so much I can experience the flow. It provides a deep enjoyment that requires equal degree of my disciplined concentration. I experience it many times - when I reach the top of a mountain, I ecstatically say, Is that all? and prepare for the next. 

I go with that flow!

Srik

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optimal experience

Excerpts from the book 'flow' by mihaly csikszentmihalyi

or happiness!

Our perceptions about our lives are the outcome of many forces that shape experience, each having an impact on whether we feel good or bad. Most of these forces are outside our control. There is not much we can do about our looks, our temperament, or our constitution. We cannot decide - at least so far - how tall will we grow, how smart we will get. We can choose neither parents nor time of birth, and it is not in your power or mine to decide whether there will be a war or a depression. The instructions contained in our genes, the pull of gravity, the pollen in the air, the historical period into which we are born - these and innumerable other conditions determine what we see, how we feel, what we do. It is not surprising that we should believe that our fate is primarily ordained by outside agencies.

Yet we have all experienced times when, instead of being buffeted by anonymous forces, we do feel in control of our actions, masters of our own fate. On the rare occasions that it happens, we feel a sense of exhilaration, a deep sense of enjoyment that is long cherished and that becomes a landmark in the memory for what life should be like. 

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I absolutely agree! 

It is that feel when I am in the woods, touching the mist, listening to the birds, and wondering at the silence of a flowing river.

It is that feel when I feel what I wanted to feel.

It is that, what I can make it happen!

and, that is happiness!

Srik

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