School did a strange thing to me. It taught me to spot and fix my negatives, while coasting on my positives. Let me explain.
My favourite subject — -the one I did my best in — was English. And my least favourite subject — the one I did my worst in — was Chemistry. And here’s where school subtly guided me. If I wanted a good final grade average, school told me that I’d need to first improve my Chemistry grades and only then work on English. So I did that. I worked hard on Chemistry — but unfortunately, didn’t have the time and/or energy to touch English. This meant my English grades fell ‘cuz I was ignoring the subject, and my Chemistry grades improved only a teeny bit.
Life after school taught me the opposite, though.
For more than a decade, I’ve been a marketer, but never really took to it. Sure, marketing paid the bills and I had great clients — but marketing means writing for your clients’ audience. Not for yourself. So, this was my new Chemistry. Something I wasn’t instinctively good at. Something I’d need to slog at to improve.
Instead, life taught me that real joy comes from improving what you’re already good at — not struggling to fix what doesn’t come naturally. Sure, you can get better at anything you put your mind to. But you’ll never find joy if you’re not working on something you instinctively love.
That’s why I’m gradually making a career shift. Rather than plugging away at marketing (a job I’ve held for over a decade now) I’m shifting to creating teaching material — a challenge I instinctively love. If marketing is my Chemistry, creating teaching material is my English.
And this has changed how I work. Instead of getting roughed up by life’s currents, I’m building myself a cozy little bubble where I can tend to my garden of easy-to-understand teaching material. I’m not Rohan the Marketer. I’m Rohan the Simple Writing Guy. And rather than catering to an alien audience, I’m creating content, patiently waiting for ‘my’ audience to find me. It’s like that saying, “If you build it, they will come.” And yes, this is a privileged life — but it’s one I don’t take lightly.
For more on what I mean, visit rohantharyan.com/teaching-material