Do work that excites you

Two years ago, when I was at the crossroads in my career and wondering what to do next and how to choose a job out of the offers that came my way, I approached several friends for advice. Many of my friends responded wonderfully and gave a lot of useful guidance. But, still I was finding it difficult to arrive at a decision. Then, a senior and experienced friend told me something which I remember till date. She simply said, "Do work that excites you". No permutations and combinations of what might happen in future or what is more relevant to the community or which field is likely to have a lot of scope in future or which job is likely to pay more. Just a simple and sensible way to take a decision in the development sector.Two years down the line, I am so glad that I took the advice and followed it.

But, the reason for writing this note is not to talk about my career. It is to try and explain why it is important to do work that excites you, especially in the development sector. Issues in the development sector are complex and require a of perseverance and creativity to address them. Things are the way they are because the people involved in a situation think and work in a certain manner. So, for change to happen, this established pattern has to be broken and something new must be introduced. And this new element must last otherwise the situation would return to the original state after the new element is gone.

Therefore it is important for development workers to work with the current situation as well as challenge it in substantial ways so that the situation reaches a higher level of development and continues to stay there. This may require new institutions to establish a new marketing system that challenges the pattern of exploitation of primary producers or an institution that creates a level playing ground for local communities to effectively prevent corporate interests from taking away their rights.

At a personal level, it is important for development workers to have some special quality - say entrepreneurial talent, or tremendous will or perseverance to go the extra mile or a never-say-die attitude or a strong conviction - something different that will introduce change in the situation in which they are working. That's one reason why development workers who are excited about their jobs probably have a better chance at developing the communities they work with than people who work with one eye on the clock and another on the calendar(salary date!!) or something else. As the Chinese say, one man fighting with conviction is equivalent to ten thousand men fighting for a salary.

Finding resonance

Every object has a natural frequency. When vibrations of that frequency occur near the object, the object comes alive(starts vibrating). It is a concept in physics that is useful in daily life. For example, Jawans are asked to avoid marching on bridges. If the frequency of the march matches with the natural frequency of the bridge then the bridge will start vibrating and might collapse even.

Resonance is important in development work. Ideas that are natural and spontaneous tend to resonate rather that ideas that are artificial and implanted on people. That is not to say that plans never work or resonate, but the plan needs to have an element of spontaneity, simplicity and needs to be somewhat natural in order to work.

That's why i think its important for planners and development workers to be in tune with the community, to understand the way the people's lives goes on and what kind of development will be natural to them and find resonance.

When we find resonance, we need not keep pushing things.. we initiate something and in response something happens and we take the next step and something more happens and that way we get sucked into the work. That's when you are not really trying too hard but just being yourself in the situation which you understand is not entirely in your control but feel part of the situation where people are just being themselves.