“Success comes to those who dedicate everything to their passion in life. To be successful, it is also very important to be humble and never let fame or money travel to your head.”
- A. R. Rahman

We all have a passion. We may find it in a way that others do not understand. They may ask how we discover our path; the answer is that we always have a feeling in our hearts, no matter how small, about what we like and enjoy, and that is our passion. Each one of us has an obligation, a responsibility, which we have to fulfil and should not ignore. That responsibility is to follow whatever path has been laid down for us. We humans have to struggle on that path and ignore all material temptations that come to us, for our own good.

However, most people nowadays end up giving up on their true passions for more material things, such as money, a nice house, good food, and a comfortable life. What they do not know, however, is that if we follow and achieve our dreams, these material needs may come to us eventually, and that these things themselves are temporary, while the satisfaction gained from fulfilling our potential is eternal. Many factors in life may make it difficult to pursue our passions; people may mock us, but inner fulfilment can only be achieved by ignoring all these hurdles and following our passions with resilience. To find true satisfaction in the world, we have to stay true to ourselves and develop resilience to handle the difficulties the world sets for us.

Paulo Coelho illustrates the rewards of pursuing our purpose perfectly in his novel The Alchemist. Young Santiago discovers his life’s purpose at the early age of 16 and spends the next 10 years pursuing it. Though he loses so much during his journey, it is more important for him to find his treasure. He learns about the world and how it works, about compassion and cruelty, the deserts and the mountains, history and magic, growth and neglect, and about the aspect of life that is not visible, the unseen world of the spirit.

Through Santiago’s tale, Coelho shows that if you give up on your passion, it will leave you without direction. He also teaches us this lesson with the story of the crystal merchant, who is too afraid to follow his goal and risk losing his wealth and material gain. If you are not willing to sacrifice other needs for your passion, it may not be your real passion after all. In other words, finding out if you are willing to make sacrifices is also important while finding your passion. But whatever setbacks stand in the way of young Santiago, he ignores them and refuses to back down. He shows true grit and resilience, which leads him to achieve the fulfilment he so longs for.

A good example of how following our passions with complete disregard for all setbacks can lead us to achieve our long desired goal is Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. His ambition was finding a place where the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent could live and practice their religious beliefs peacefully after gaining freedom from the British colonial authorities. Jinnah gave the Muslims direction and struggled for them despite all barriers, including his own health. Jinnah was diagnosed with tuberculosis after he decided to participate in the establishment of Pakistan. He could have easily ignored the needs of other less fortunate Muslims and focused on his own problems, but he did not give up on them, and became an inspiration for many people to give up their personal needs in order to follow their passions.

Another person who has showed me that following a passion can make us stronger is not famous but is one of my heroes in life: my uncle Ehsan Ullah Bajwa. As a former Deputy Inspector General of Police and member of the UN War Crimes Tribunal, he has had a distinguished career. Yet he has not cared for material gain, and instead has completely devoted his life to his passion, gaining knowledge, which has made him spiritually and intellectually more capable than others. His very presence makes me feel like I am with a person who is much more advanced than I am. He can introduce people to knowledge that can alter their long held beliefs and open their minds to a completely new perspective they could never see before.

Not everyone craves reading books and gaining knowledge, but my uncle does, and that very thing has brought him greatness. He has not cared about going after jobs his whole life, because he does not have to look for them—it’s as if jobs are looking for him. He never gave in to the everlasting temptation of material gain. He disregarded offers which would have earned him a lot of money but at the same time acted as hurdles in the path towards his goal, and instead continued life in the way his passion guided him. Uncle Ehsan is the best example I can find of the fact that we never need to work for something harder than we work for our true passions.

Some of us may wonder, “What is the benefit of following our passions?” After all, it is much easier to give in to simpler methods of gaining “happiness.” I feel those who make this argument have never really experienced the ultimate satisfaction and feeling of accomplishment that comes from achieving a goal one is passionate about. This feeling is the ultimate reward of a life spent following one’s own true path.

Life may seem to be on the right track when we are following our dreams, but we always have to be careful. We should not focus on material gain, but should also never harm anyone else while pursuing our passion. For example, a person whose passion is to travel around the world should never pose himself a burden to anyone by making someone else, such as a parent, finance a trip. He or she should work hard for this passion and never forget it, as all good things come through hard work and resilience.

My passion is to live in a way that benefits everyone around me. I always try to help everybody I know. I also aim to be friendly to everyone, and to guide them through any hardships they have. I try to make everyone feel that when they talk to me, they are talking to a friend. By nature, I may not be the most generous person, but I strive to be as generous as I can by helping everyone around me in any way possible. I would always prefer to be a helper in people’s lives rather than remaining a spectator. And I think that I am heading in the right direction.

Every single being on earth has a purpose. A life is wasted if that purpose is not fulfilled, and wasting a life is a sin as great as destroying a soul. When we find our passions, we should follow them with grit and should not care about any other thing in the world, because we can only achieve ultimate happiness when we follow our ambitions with resilience.