This week’s reading literally made me think of the reason why I chose to study media. It talks about two types of mindset people have: craftsman mindset and passion mindset, and come to think about it, I’m adopting the craftsman mindset.

Initially, when I graduated from high school, I went to Manchester and planned to study Foundation and Bachelor of Law since UK is well-known for their Law undergraduate course, and I went. Students are meant to write personal statement to 5 different universities at max to apply for the courses that they wanna study, and I applied for Law for all 5 universities (though I don’t know why didn’t I leave a slot for media when I was already having Bachelor of Communication and Media in mind, but I think it’s meant to be). In the end when I finished my foundation, I packed my luggage and flew back to Malaysia without any further planning because that’s how desperate I felt to not to study Law, and now I’m studying Bach of Communication in RMIT. I wouldn’t say I have a craftsman mindset by this, but one thing for sure is that, when I talk about communicating, broadcasting, producing, screenwriting, I feel like I share the same feeling as how Jordan Tice’s eyes lit up when he was trying to share a song that he’s been working on with Calvin Newport, the author of this week’s reading (Newport, 2012).

I hope to see that the current generation will adopt the craftsman mindset more than the passion mindset as according to Newport (2012), passion mindset will lead people to start thinking about what the world would offer you in return if he or she was to do something, and that will gradually make people start to lose the interest and passion in their lives (which is something that I totally agree). Eventually, people will be living on the same pace without challenging tasks, or even just a tiny task will get them feel irritated or frustrated. Whereas adopting a craftsman mindset, a person will think about himself more, and having full attention and passion onto something he is genuinely interested, even though it is an occupation. Confucius once said, “Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.” It applies to young people nowadays who are going for higher education (especially in asian families), young kids tend to go for courses that are sort of ‘expected’ rather than something ‘unique’ like filmmaking, sound design and other subjects that are more towards arts and design (in terms of media industry). I would like to shoutout to them that if you really have the passion for it, and that’s what your heart really wants, then go for it. You are the one living your life, not your family, not your friends, not anyone but you. Don’t study or find a job that you know you have no passion in it and you will not enjoy, because life is short.

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Reference: Cal Newport, 2012, ‘The Clarity of the Craftsman’ in So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work, NY Business Plus, ch.4.