THE BEST PASSION PURSUITS ARE THE ONES THAT TEACH YOU NO LESSONS

Too many times I’ve read about people talking about how their passion points have been a great teacher and then go on to pinpoint how each aspect of their passions has helped them in various facets of life. Most of them boil down to leadership, team and time management, and broadening of their overall perspective. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s perfectly alright if your passion leads to all these learnings and more and helps you in your overall growth as a professional and a person. My belief is exactly the opposite. I have no measure to evaluate if my passion really helps in anything other than the pure unaltered joy of pursuing it.
Sneaker culture had me intrigued about a decade back and slowly but surely it turned me into a full blown sneakerhead. What started off as a plain shopping experience slowly made me an avid student of the culture, the history and the overall impact sneakers have had across multiple generations. While my collection has grown over the years, my real gains have been the wonderful conversations with fellow sneakerheads from all over the world. It’s amazing how passion points can bring together people from totally diverse backgrounds. The pursuit of a coveted sneaker today takes me all over the world, and in the last year all over the digital world. A rare sneaker sometimes might take several months to get added to your collection and impatience won’t get you anywhere. For example, seven years ago, I bought a pair of good looking sneakers from a thrift shop in Las Vegas for about $150, only to later realise the pair is actually worth more than $2000. I don’t recollect if I was overjoyed about the return on investment or the fact that I had pocketed a rare pair. Over the years I have collected many such invaluable anecdotes, and maybe it will all come together as book someday. Maybe I too will analyse each of these stories and look for takeaways and realise that it taught me a lot of life lessons over the course of time. But until then, the only thing I receive from my passion is pure joy and I’m very happy to keep it that way!