Guiding Light: Career Guidance For Young Adults — Beyond 'Follow Your Passion'

With SSC and many other exam results out, thousands of students are choosing careers that will shape their lives. Elders and parents typically offer familiar advice: "Go for a career that pays well" or "Follow your passion, and everything else will follow." While these platitudes contain some truth, they don't always work in practice.

Pursuing a career solely for money may leave you stuck with something you dislike, making you unhappy daily. Conversely, following your passion—whether classical music, dance, or art—requires pragmatism. For every financially successful person in these fields, hundreds struggle financially, affecting their lives and families.

How can we as adults help young people navigate this challenge?

You may have a genuine passion, and many of us have successfully followed ours. However, consider whether your passion is so consuming that you'd sacrifice everything else for it. Do you have other priorities, like having a life partner, children, or responsibilities toward parents? Will your passion generate enough income to handle these responsibilities and provide necessary financial security?

A balanced approach involves first identifying your priorities. Your priorities may change over time—that's perfectly fine. At least decide whether you truly want a family long-term or prefer focusing solely on work and financial success.

These decisions require getting in touch with your deeper feelings, priorities, and genuine long-term needs. Parents, counsellors, and career advisors can help here. Rather than simply administering tests suggesting "you'd be good at science or arts", we should help young people identify their long-term priorities for better chances at happiness.

Someone who sets priorities at 18 may discover deeper ones at 30, that's natural. Having lived according to their priorities for 10-12 years, they'll be better equipped to handle emerging priorities, especially with mentorship.

This is our role as adults: help young people identify their long-term priorities and choose careers, jobs or businesses that align with fulfilling those priorities, creating a foundation for both satisfaction and practical success.

The writer is the founder of Aarsha Vidya Foundation. You can write to him at aarshavidyaf@gmail.com