Sitting at a 24 hour indian eatery at 1am in the morning, I had a long drawn out conversation with Forrest, a good buddy, personal hair stylist, and soon-to-be business partner in an exciting new business venture. One favorite topic that stood out in my mind was about his changing passion.

Forrest is a very passionate hair dresser, taking extreme pride in his 'hair arts'. But lately, he finds that his interest has started peeking into looking at business opportunities with me, so that he can make more money and leading a more comfortable life.

"I think I'm losing my passion to reality" He tells me.

"Really?" I asked with more than a little alarm in my voice. After all, losing a dream to worldly constraints and social norms (otherwise called 'reality') hardly sounded like good news.

I wanted to be sure, and so I asked: "What is it that you like most about hair dressing, Forrest?"

And he said: "I believe that if I can help someone look the best they can, they will feel even better about themselves, and that will help them to develop a greater confidence in themselves."

And I thought that was a profound point.

It turns out that Forrest's real passion was in inspiring people to discover and feel good about who they are, and it gives him joy and enthusiasm to do that. Hair dressing came along the way as a convenient occurance that allowed him to express that passion.

Since our schooling years, we've been so accustomed to think about what we want to become when we "grow up", and we spend much of our growing years pondering and trying to squeeze ourselves into predefined roles in society. That's alot of emphasis on the what we can "DO". But what about the bit on what we can "BE"?

A teacher asks "What do you want to be when you grow up?" And a little boy says "I want to be a doctor" - because doctors make people feel better when they don't feel too good, just like how he feels whenever he visits his family doctor.

But he doesn't know this. And because teacher's aren't normally trained to ask things like "What do you like about being a doctor?", he doesn't get to discover what he really feel inside.

As he grows up, the little boy, now an energetic young man, pursues a degree in medicine. But this time, it's because he's been told how he has a bright career if he does. And then he graduates and fulfills his goal.

Then reality sets in. He's spending countless hours in the hospital, away from his family. Politics are rife among his colleagues, patients are making legal claims against mal-practices, and there are lots of paperwork to cover the legal issues, now all of a sudden, this doesn't seem so fun anymore! Where was that 'bright career' he was looking for? The energetic young man, who is now a tired, frustrated middle-age man, stops in his tracks and asks himself: "What is this all about, really?"

He never got in touch with his true passion since he was a little boy: to help people feel better when they are not feeling too good.

A year later, to the suprise of many around him, he quit his job as a doctor to join a seminary, where he studied to become a pastor.

For both Forrest and the middle-aged man, reality set in to help them re-look at their lives to discover their true passions all over again. It isn't always a job description, but sometimes a personal life purpose, that has to be run outside of any single discernable job scope.

I finished up my drink at the indian eatery, and gave a quiet "thank you" to Life for that amazing little insight from my conversation with Forrest. I now contantly re-examining my passion and purpose to get to know again the little boy that I was before. It isn't always about the DOING, I remind myself, it's about the BE-ING.

What would you like to BE when you grow up? ;)