What’s your passion?
This can be a hard question to answer.
I am here though, to advise you that society makes us all accept that if we aren’t following our passions, our cravings, our obsessions, then we are devoid of any passion.
This is far from the truth. In fact, only a minority of people are actually in pursuance of their passions.
Don’t be disappointed.
We’re told over and over and over we should always pursue our passions; we should turn reality into what we believe will make us happy. This is largely a cultural belief in the west. In the east, most families map out their children’s future.
A friend of mine who is from Korea is a successful doctor. He has his own practice and he easily makes six figures a year. But he didn't grow up wanting to be a doctor, he was like any other kid, he wanted to be a fireman or a policeman or a baseball player. Becoming a doctor was his parents' choice.
Chasing your passions has been successfully marketed to us—the people in the west—during the last century to the point of parody. This can be dangerous because most young people don’t know what their passions are. Most people don’t even know what passion is.
As Confucius said, “choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.” It’s great advice, but it’s not always that simple—it can be difficult to figure out what you love. If you have to search for your passion, then you probably aren’t passionate about it.
The answer to the question “what am I passionate about?” is right under our noses. You’ve already found your passion, you’re just ignoring it. A normal person spends 16 hours a day awake, what do we do with our time? We’re doing something, right?
You spend eight hours at work. You spend two hours commuting. What consumes the remainder of your day? The six remaining hours.
You spend every waking hour on the weekends watching Sports Center. You’ve got every podcast of Outkick the Show with Clay Travis saved on your iTunes to listen to on your lunch break.
You’re talking about something. Maybe it's politics? Maybe it's social issues? Maybe it's sports?
You and your friends might be comparing superheroes based on DC comics versus Marvel comics. Who’s stronger: Marvel's Protege or DC's The Presence? Who’s more popular: Superman or Spider-Man?
There’s some topic or activity or idea that dominates a significant amount of your free time: what do you and your friends talk about; you spend hours on the computer browsing. Our passions dominate us without consciously pursuing it or looking for it.
I bet you could find your passion if you check out the browsing history on your computer.
If you’re passionate about something, it will already feel like such an ingrained part of your life. The real truth is you already enjoy something. You already enjoy many things. You’re just choosing to ignore them.
People believe all you have to do is find the thing you’re “meant” to do, and suddenly, everything will click into place. You’ll do it until the day you die and always feel fulfilled and happy. The reality of this is it doesn’t exist. There’s no such thing as some passionate activity that you will never get tired of, never get stressed over, never complain about. It doesn’t exist.
But if we are lucky enough to get it right, it’s liable to one day change. Because you change, willingly or not. Society changes, sometimes for the good, sometimes for the bad. The economy changes, there’s inflation and recessions.
The trouble with the exhortation to “follow your passion” is, it implies those of us who are decently content—albeit not particularly passionate about any one thing—are somehow devoid of any passion. Those who are unemployed or underemployed, depressed, raising kids, or otherwise unable to gather enough resources to start off on a new path are even somehow referred to as small people: the “sheep," as I've heard us “non-passionate” people called by those who consider themselves to be more “passionate."
Working a 9–5 job does not make you any less passionate than those who are following their passions, it makes you responsible. Your first duty in life is to take care of yourself and the people who depend on you. If your job allows you to do that, don’t let anyone make you feel bad about your choice.
My “passion," if that's what you call my sense of what's important, is to live a good life, a grounded life, a humbled life, which means to learn and grow, to help those around me, to connect, and to be present with what's happening. This takes up much too much of my time and energy to waste any more of it trying to figure out what my “passion” or “purpose” is.
And do you want to know a secret? A lot of the time, it doesn't feel very passionate. It feels hard, or boring, or confusing. Or it makes me sad, or tired, or worn out. Then sometimes there's a moment of connection or joy or beauty that makes it worthwhile. I don't think there's any more purpose than that.