Musings of an Old Chemist

A Chemist's Perspective on the Habits and Skills STEM Students Need For Success

Tag: passion

  • Weekly Quotation: Sunday, May 31, 2026: The Key to a Joyful Career

    Weekly Quotation: Sunday, May 31, 2026: The Key to a Joyful Career

    For your consideration:

    Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.

    – Steve Jobs

    The secret to success in what you do is to find your passion. It is not always the career that earns you the highest salary or a significant title; it is the one that brings you the most joy and fosters personal growth. A career that encourages you to become the best version of yourself. A career that brings you joy as well as those you serve is, in my view, the key to happiness.

    Speaking from experience, it is very easy to get caught up in trying to meet the expectations of the world around us: to solve the next challenge, earn the highest salary, receive the quickest promotions, that we get lost; we miss out on the true meaning of our lives. It is only when we pause and, through self-reflection, evaluate who we are and who we want to be that we change the course of our lives to pursue our passions. It is the most courageous thing you and I may ever do.

  • Following Your Passion: A Personal Journey

    Following Your Passion: A Personal Journey

    For your consideration –

    “Follow your enthusiasm. It’s something I’ve always believed in. Find those parts of your life you enjoy the most. Do what you enjoy doing.”

    – Jim Henson

    I want you to recognize the importance of following your passion(s). I want you to understand who you want to be and make your decision(s) to follow your dreams, setting your own expectations based upon what truly motivates you.

    As I reflect upon my life, my achievements, my successes, and my failures, my greatest mistake has been that I have always sought out the next challenge, and meeting that challenge would make me happy. Thus, giving me the recognition I longed for. I now recognize that I lost my way.

    I wasted so many years in supervisory and management roles that I did not enjoy, only because I believed that they were a mandatory next step along my career path. I then spent seven years in the classroom, believing I had the background knowledge and experience that would guarantee my success in the teaching field. It did not; I was not happy and did not do my students justice.

    I truly enjoyed just being an instrumental chemist, working in a lab performing analyses, especially operating gas chromatography/mass spectrometry instrumentation. At one point in my career, I worked as an R&D chemist for Hewlett-Packard’s Analytical Products Division in Avondale, Pennsylvania. It was an opportunity to combine my passion for instrumental chemistry with the opportunity to be on the cutting edge of new product design. It was my dream job. But it was the wrong time in my personal journey. And now, as my perspective has changed, with age, I can acknowledge I would not be where I am today if I had continued down that path. And I am truly blessed to be where I am today.

    The lesson is this: know yourself. Constantly practice self-awareness and self-reflection. Ask yourself: “What truly makes me happy?” and “What type of person do I want to be known as?” And, most importantly, follow your dreams.