According to Cal Newport, ” Follow your dreams” is so 5 years ago.

OK, I don’t literally mean he said that exactly but that’s what i got from the 20 minute video that we watched in this week’s lectorial.

This is the scene in class right now:

Everyone’s on their laptop typing, furiously focussed for the next 15 minutes. Brian has instructed us to start with our blogpost for this week within the time frame allocated. We were to switch of all distracting materials and focus on the lectorial post for fifteen. minutes.

Cal Newport’s video details the top 3 things you need to end up being passionate about what you love. He doesn’t believe in “ following your dreams” as he makes clear of this fact throughout the 20 minute video. Instead, he emphasises that passion grows with skill. To acquire this skill, or even to improve it, you’d have to focus and do some ‘deep work’. With deep work comes deep focus, and it’s a skill that can prove to be very valuable in all aspects of our lives. This exercise, currently, is an example of how to increase our razor focus. just 15 minutes of pure work.

Of course, this makes me question myself a whole lot ( I guess that’s what uni does to you yeah? ) However, i do see Newport’s perspective. He gave a very good example of Steve Jobs who basically “stumbled” into his dream rather than follow it.

I do recommend everyone to give the video a watch. You know what? I might just go watch it again right now.