If you think that passion is just simple, fun and to ‘feel good’, you will most likely give up”
Following or finding your passion is advice that I think is based on it “feeling good” and somehow it sounds easy. For many, it is not self-evident or simple because most things in life are unclear.
Finding your passion is a big part of your life task and it will probably not be something grand like Moses calling you or Jesus coming back.
In fact, I do not have a damn clue how to find your passion. I have gathered ideas on how they can lead to different problems, where you can look, how it might go and at the bottom of the page you get better advice in my opinion.
Some problems following or finding your passion
Passion is not an unlimited source of energy
If you think that you will wake up every single day and love every second of what you are going to do, what is your so-called passion, you will be deceived. I was in the same shoes and thought that a passion was explosive, that it would give me infinite energy that never ran out, I was wrong… again.
This morning I looked at my writing and my business with gray eyes. I would write for two or three hours after I woke up. I really had to “whip” myself to write for an hour, then I went out and went.
What I was going to write was on my fifth book, Max and Horan part four. You might think that I should be tagged, that I should be inspired because I work with my own book?
The truth is that all days and moments are not fun, I do not jump for joy, am filled with passion up to my ears or really have no desire to do anything at all. At times, I just want to press control-alt-delete and think, “I’m shitting on this” “I burn all the books, shut down the website, and just go underground.
All that is mentioned when it comes to “following your passion” is that “DO IT” “EVERYTHING FEELS TOP ALL THE TIME” which is a total bullshit because then the person has not even understood the origin of the word passion.
“The word passion comes from the Latin word passio which means to suffer.”
Money and passion
You get financial return by creating value for others, value for others can be created when you become good at something. To be good at something, you have to do “it” not just once but many times.
Therefore, it can take a very long time to get a financial return on your passion, if you ever get it. Most artists, writers, comedians, entrepreneurs and athletes have gotten their returns after thousands, I mean thousands of hours of training and “doing” that they have not been paid for.
Not everyone who tries gets the same financial return and some get nothing at all. If you want to get a financial return, you need to know what the market wants and then it is not enough just to follow your passion. Therefore, “follow your passion and the money will come” is another common and classically useless piece of advice.
“If you want to get a financial return, you have to know what the market wants and then it is not enough just to follow your passion.”
The word passion is based on feeling good
Following your passion is a piece of advice that I think is based on feeling good and somehow sounds simple.
If you are lucky enough to find your passion, you will not fly forward on a unicorn over the rainbow every day while everything feels magical.
If you are lucky enough to find your passion, it will not solve all your problems, you will not love all of it and there will probably be new challenges and it is not easy all the time.
It is very egocentric
Following one’s passion is very egocentric. It can be the classic “entrepreneur”, “inventor” or “actor” who continues to borrow money from his parents, friends and ultimately puts the whole family in a tough situation.
A person who refuses to get a “regular job” because the person in question must follow his passion even though the individual has done so for 10 years without succeeding or earning a buck while being financially dependent on others.
It does not feel grand all the time
I thought that passion would be something grand all the time, as if the Messiah would come back and bless me.
That he would descend from heaven via a staircase and stand in front of me in his white coat with the new commandments in one hand and my passion in the other. Or that Moses would call and say; “Tjäääna! Are you ready to pick up your passion? See you at the Red Sea in a day ”.
Once we stood there, Moses would share the sea once more and at the bottom of the sea would be my passion. However, it does not work that way, passion does not feel great all the time.
“If you follow your passion, some moments feel empty, meaningless and gray, but this is something that is rarely stated in the advice ‘follow your passion’.”
Who gives the advice, follow your passion?
Someone who stands on a stage and shouts “Follow your passion”, “If I can, can you” may have 160 in IQ, put 10,000 hours into his profession, have built his career for 20 years, failed with five hundred ideas before the breakthrough and worked 60 hours every week. You may be sitting in the audience with a normal IQ, not spending 10,000 hours on anything other than Netflix and thinking “Yes but then I quit my job and run on my passion” without having any experience at all which can be a damn tough way to go.
“Passion is something the Stoics despise because it made people irrational and make stupid decisions.”
Mental illness and passion
The word passion has filled me with anxiety, stress and a million questions “What to find my passion?”, “How should I…?”, “Where should I look?”, “How can others find their passion and why am I so useless to find mine? ” I will die “passionless”, thoughts that made my mind go in all directions at the same time. At times, I thought I would go crazy and be my worst enemy of the council follow your passion.
Passion was something that a while ago was constantly in my feeds through various blog posts, lectures, videos and even conversations.
It seemed was hip and is perhaps still today. I think the advice is based on the idea of ”feeling good”. According to some research, people who focus on “feeling good” often have more problems with their mental illness and depression than others.
If you have passion as your goal, you indirectly tell yourself that you cannot feel it at the moment because you do not have / are x.
Alan Watts, a philosopher, said that if you strive for something, you only reinforce the lack of it. If you strive for passion, then you will reinforce the lack of it.
Passion, meaning or quick satisfaction?
Do you even know if it is your passion you are following or just a quick satisfaction of your desire or pleasure?
Writing and doing my business is not fun every day. It does not fill me with bubbling emotions all the time, it rarely happens.
Some days I just feel like I want to lie on the couch and wait for the Messiah or for Moses to call.
Maybe it’s the same “think” people have when they start exercising, writing that book or starting to paint. That something fantastic should happen and they should be super motivated 24/7.
It will not happen but sometimes you are lucky enough to be extra motivated just like you are happy at times and sad at others, the emotions are fluid like the weather.
I think my driving force comes from the meaning of what I do. Meaning is something that stays. I get the meaning through the development of my character.
It weighs heavier than passion and quick gratification because these two eventually disappear. The development comes from challenges and setbacks.
After I have written whether I wanted to or not, it always feels a little better, just like after I trained because I know I am doing something with my existence.
It’s more about a pride and a satisfaction I get after I have done just that instead of something else. Doing something gives me a meaning that makes my life worth living.
“The belief that passion must be ‘found’ can lead people to limit themselves and give up when faced with challenges.”
A passionate life for you is certainly different than for others
Your parents may have lived a Svensson life and were happy or unhappy. You may have seen that they were not particularly “happy” even though they had their house, the dog, the family and the car.
Is it weird that you are looking for something else in your life? Certainly not because you are not them and they are not you. How you want to live may be the opposite of your parents, so why are you following in the same footsteps?
Passion and a regular job
When did it become wrong or ugly to just like what you do? Must there be flashing feelings of love or that you should be a new Messiah?
No, it does not have to exist and you do not even have to like what you do, but you can like who you do it with. In your free time, you can do what you like, what will probably change over time.
” Encouraging people to find their great passion can lead them to put all their eggs in one basket and then release that basket when it becomes too difficult to carry.”
How do I find my passion?
“Today we are so focused on finding our passion that we miss it. Our passion is usually before our eyes, but we choose to see something else. ”
It has probably already found you
You have probably already found it but choose to ignore it. Most people do not have to find their passion but theirs has already found them. It’s probably so obvious that you choose not to see it.
You are awake 16 hours a day, seriously, what do you do with the time? What are you talking about? What are you looking for? What are you interested in? What videos are you watching? What do you like to talk about? Where does your curiosity lead you? What makes you forget time and space? What makes you feel engaged? You probably already have one or more activities that fill much of your days, weeks, months and years, what are they?
Take care of yourself and see what you’re doing! Maybe you sit and play computer games eight hours a day, golf, make music, read comic books, draw or love your dogs? What is it if not passion?
It may be that you work at a regular job and get a specific task that you are completely lost in. It may not come from a task but it may be a perfect balance of challenges, your potential and current ability.
Awareness
Allowing yourself to see your passion is about acceptance and perspective. If you love to walk around the forest and explore, maybe you should study science instead of the lawyer your parents want or possibly become a “forest crumb” or maybe you can accept that you love the forest and work as a lawyer anyway?
Maybe you could work on something that is “okay” and then become more productive. You can exercise your “passion” more and more often and then in the future you may even get paid for it.
You may have to work in a “regular job” for ten years and have your passion as a hobby in order to then be able to make money on your hobby in the future.
Maybe you quit and work on your passion to realize that maybe that was not what you wanted to do at all.
Finding indicates that something is missing
Finding something is an indication that something is missing and when something is missing, feelings are created by e.g. loss, sadness, frustration and can lead to bad thought loops that tear you to pieces.
What would happen if you instead create your passion by trying different things like painting, dancing, creating music, building a business, writing, being out in the woods, traveling or going to various events?
Passion is not something you find but creates by doing different things.
Follow your curiosity, commitment and interest
The word passion complicates it. It is not obvious what to do, but instead of following your passion which is a vague concept, follow your curiosity instead. Get involved in what you are interested in.
Passionate is something you can be
You can be passionate as a human being. It is not a specific activity that adds passion to your life, but you as a person add passion to what you do.
You, like me, have met these passionate people, they are just genuinely happy to live, almost never complain and always make others feel better.
It is passionate to live life as it is and not for a specific activity. Being passionate about an activity is pretty useless as you do several things every day and what happens if you can not do just “that” activity? Why would you limit your passion to an activity? Can’t you let it seep out into your everyday life and through everything you do?
“Many advances in science and entrepreneurship happen when people unite different areas of activity, when people see new links between areas of activity that they may not have seen before.”
One or more?
“Follow your passion” claims that you have one, I think most people have several. To follow one’s passion should be written in the plural, ie. passions.
I try different activities, sports, experiences and many of these things I have tried once, some several times to then continue or stop completely.
Does it mean that my passion ended, that I should stop trying because I did not find just one thing, a passion? No, no, no and absolutely no!
Some find a thing that they stick to for a while and others continue with the same thing all their lives. The usual thing I think is that you have passions that you fertilize like a bumblebee. One passion can lead to another taking over so that you spend less time with the first. There is nothing right or wrong.
