In a very subtle and instructive manner, Kunle Afolayan’s Mokalik explores the “Follow Your Passion” angle to career development strategy. The overarching plot is a 12-year old protagonist apt at dexterity but exhibits slowness in traditional formal schooling. My daughter, at the same age, built her first website (www.damsies.com) using Adobe XD for the UX/UI design and HTML, CSS and JavaScript codes for developing the portal without the aid of a builder. The irony is that my daughter has no serious interest in coding or computing of any kind. She wants to be a chef, hence passionate about food construction which is evident by her proclivity to watching food contents on DSTV/Netflix/YouTube Kids. This is a definite alarm bell for a father who is eagerly pragmatic about career life choices.
The argument deepens with Pastor Kingsley of the David Christian Center advising his congregants on the advantages of marrying their friends (video snippet below), therefore prioritizing knowledge to passion. The thesis appears plausible until you consider your own personal story and the conventional friend zone rhetoric. It could “maybe” be the social construct or environmental influence, but I cannot imagine kissing a friend that I was not attracted to, not to talk of consummating the union. In a committed long-term relationship, passion tends to facilitate forgiveness and can raise one’s perception to accommodate the partner’s weaknesses. In introspect, sex blinds and masks each partner’s dispositions (but for how long).
The truth is that I want Pastor Kingsley to be right so bad – there will be fewer headaches and more fluidity concerning vision, preferences and so on, in a marriage relationship. I could easily map my daughter’s career – a 6-month Lambda School after High school, a 3-year Bachelors in Economics and a top 10 MBA school in the world. Wouldn’t that be a good dream but passion could likely intervene. With a chuckle on my face, I distinctively recalled how I influenced her to learn to code;
Dipo: Congrats on finishing the JSS 3 BECE Exam, what career are you gravitating towards?
Dami: I want to be a chef.
Dipo: interesting (thinking it was a childish dream), then
Dami: I saw a culinary vocational school on my way to/from school. I would like to utilize this holiday by attending. Then I would look at subjects that align with Home Economics for Senior Secondary.
Dipo: That’s serious, let’s discuss this with your mum (a way out, breathes freely).
After three days of avoiding the topic and strategizing.
Dipo: Do you know that a chef reports to the management of their establishment?
Dami: No, I know of some popular chefs that own their establishment.
Dipo: Do you want to own the establishment, and also want it to be successful and global?
Dami: Yes, I very much want that (I don catch am).
Dipo: If you want to have a successful establishment, then you need to go to a first-rate business school and garner experience from a first-rate organization(s) (preferably in the hospitality domain).
Dami: How can I get employed in a first-rated organization
Dipo: Well, the way the future is going, jobs will continue becoming scarce as the population balloons. Only those that know the language of the machine, would be easily employable.
Dami: What do you mean by the language of the machine?
That was the pivot I needed to sell her on CC HUB’s coding school. I told her to try it for two months, and after which I would send her to the culinary school. Two months later, she opted out of culinary school and wanted to learn more coding. Before resuming school, she had “self-studied” Python program on her own, and she has now aligned her SSCE courses to Economics. Go figure!
