Parents’ Pride vs Your Passion — Always Choose Passion

Most of us grow up chasing the idea of making our parents proud. But here’s the truth — pride is temporary, passion is forever. Once you see your truth, keeping your eyes closed only hurts more.

(📖 Long read ahead — but worth it if you’ve ever struggled with choosing between passion and expectations.)

The turning point

There comes a moment when you realize what you really want to do — and suddenly everything else feels meaningless. For me that moment arrived five months into my government-exam preparation. Outwardly I looked like the dutiful kid: studying late, smiling at family, doing what was expected. But inside I was falling apart. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t sleep. Every day I pretended I was working toward the future everyone else wanted for me, while my mind kept wandering to what I actually wanted to build.

Everyone around me said the same thing: “You’ve already put so much in. Don’t waste it. Pull it through.” My family had a picture of my life framed long before I did — grandparents wanted me to be an IAS officer because I did well in school; my parents wanted me to prepare for government exams. They thought they were motivating me. Instead, they put a challenge in front of me: “You’re just afraid of competing with 27 lakh applicants.” So I tried to prove them wrong. I buried myself in books and started preparing.

But halfway through my prep I realized something important: I was not trying to win for myself. I was trying to win someone else’s version of success.

The unlearning I had to do

If you want to start a business from scratch in a middle-class family with no business background, you must unlearn a lot. For me that list was long and personal:

• I had to unlearn the idea that women can’t run a business because “they will have to look after kids and family after marriage.” That expectation is whispered everywhere, and it quietly shapes the careers women allow themselves to imagine.
• I had to let go of the belief that my life’s purpose was to make my parents proud — a conditional measure of success that often traps so many of us in well-meaning but limiting scripts.
• I had to stand up and say, clearly and calmly, that I’m not here to become whatever my family decided for me. I am here to create whatever I choose.

These are not small conversations in an Indian household — they are emotional, layered, and sometimes lonely. But they were necessary. The more I tried to follow someone else’s path, the more I realized I was running away from my own.

The memory that woke me up

In that confusion I remembered a line I had once scribbled in college:

Wrote this on 26th Sept, 2020. Didn’t know this would help me now.

Which means: “Once you’ve realized and seen the light, why are you still keeping your eyes closed?” That question hit me hard. I had seen what I wanted — I had glimpsed my own fire — and yet I was continuing to do the thing that soothed everyone else. That dissonance felt heavier than any exam question.

The book that changed the rules for me

Halfway through the prep, I stumbled on The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone. It wasn’t just a book; it was a permission slip. The idea — that you must massively up your actions to match massive goals — cleared a fog I didn’t realize I was living under. It didn’t promise an easy path. It promised intensity, commitment, and refusal to let fear define the scope of ambition.

That book gave me a different kind of courage. Instead of trying to prove others wrong, I started asking: What do I want to prove true? I stopped living to meet expectations and started living to test my own limits.

Why I’m writing this now

I’m documenting a messy, real journey — the unlearning, the doubts, the small wins — so that others who feel stuck can see a map, even if it’s rough.

If you’re at the crossroad of choosing a “safe” path to make others proud and a riskier path that feeds you, I’m telling you what I learned the hard way: choose passion. Not out of rebellion, but out of honesty. Pride can come later; what you build will do the enduring work of making everyone — even those who doubted you — proud.

A short invitation

If this resonates: write one thing down today that scares you the most but excites you even more. Put it somewhere you can see. Take one measurable step toward it. That’s how things begin to change: one small proof at a time.