We often seem to forget that passion is not a singular thing.<p>My #1 passion in a lot of ways is politics/history/debate. I'm probably better at standing in front of a room of 800 people and giving a speech or fielding a hostile question than anything else I do. If I followed my passion/strengths I probably would have gone to say Georgetown, gotten an economics degree, and found my way into the DC path of being an aide and then into being a candidate myself.<p>But much like the author of the article, I can't emotionally handle it. I get so worked up that my blood boils, I get enraged, and I know I would die of a heart attack at age 30.<p>So instead I went to my second passion - engineering. When I told most of my friends and teachers in high school that I was going into engineering they were all shocked.<p>Yet when I tell my engineer co-workers that my original passion was politics, they are all shocked. I do not talk about politics with co-workers (or on HN for that matter), I keep the two worlds entirely separate.<p>Maybe I'll go back to it someday, we all know the Congress could use more engineers. But sometimes we throw around 'passion' when we really should say 'like to do'. I like to be an engineer, the problems are interesting, and it's definitely fun to build things as a hobby. But I'm not passionate about differential equations or FEA modeling. Those things don't get me fired up with adrenaline or keep me away at night like my real 'passion'.
Following your passion <i>does not</i> mean: "take a job doing it". It <i>may</i> mean that, but it could also mean: "take a job that gets in the minimal amount of way of you doing your your passion". It could mean "get a part time job doing your passion, and a part time job doing something else". It could mean "Don't take that consuming job that takes a bunch of energy and time just because it brings in the good money" (unless it means, do it for a short time and retire to persue your passion full time...). It could mean 100 different things. The goal is to maximize the amount of time and energy you spend on the things you care about and which energize you, and which make your life full.<p>And a note on passion itself: As a human, expect the things you are passionate about to change with time. When I was a kid I was passionate about history and archaeology, then I discovered computers. Now I'm on and off passionate about programming, gardening, art and a million other things. Largely the computer thing is constant, but it waxes and wanes. No big deal. I am not a robot, I am not programmed to like one thing consistently forever, if this changes, I can go with it, or descend a spiral to unhappiness.<p>It sounds like the author's passions changed. Sounds like he changed with them. Good on him, but it shouldn't be seen as a condemnation of the idea of following passion.
This reminds me of one of my favorite TED talks by Mike Rowe (<a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.htm...</a>) where he talks about 'following your passion' and work in general.<p>Like most things, following your passion is about priorities. For a lot of people, treating their passion as the most important thing in the world is not sustainable for them. This idea that all of us need to tell ourselves what makes us happy and then do it is also the wrong way to go about figuring out what makes you happy. I cannot even count how many mistakes I have made and then accidentally discovered what made me happy. There is no way I could have known what it was ahead of time.
Expected 'passion' to be startups or internet marketing, but no it was to teach math. Nice little surprise.<p>Interesting post, sad to hear that the educational system grinds down the few folks who want to actually make a difference to the point where they go join big box retail.<p>Glad to hear he is happy with his new job.
I don't really get what his passion was. He states that he followed his passion and became a teacher, but having never worked as a teacher, there must have been some aspects of teaching that he thought would be fulfilling. Most of the time when people choose career paths it is for reasons that have nothing to do with passion. In fact, for most people it seems that career choice is just a mixture of luck and somewhat random choices. What exactly makes somebody start down the path of being a lawyer? Maybe their father was a lawyer or they saw a movie about a lawyer that influenced them. Conversely, somebody might become a librarian because a job opens in their hometown and they just drift into it without much planning due to sheer convenience (I know a lot of people like that). I think that career progression is largely luck-based as well, because you cannot possibly know what the reality of day-to-day life in a career looks like without living it.<p>Having gone through an MBA program, I have seen this first hand. People's entire career paths are condensed down to 18 months and a set of a few companies that just happen to recruit where you go to school. One student may come in convinced that he wants to be an entrepreneur, get pulled into the consulting crowd and have a complete shift in goals, just to get dinged by the top consulting firms and end up settling into the management track at Sears. That's the trouble with following your passion- it is pretty tough to define just what that is, and the fact that there are some jobs that involve it to an extent is probably not the best way to follow it.<p>As an aside: one other thing I noticed which was quite prevalent in the bschool crowd was this dream to do your own thing and run your own business. I would hear people say "my goal is to start a company" or "I want to join a startup." The odd thing is that none of these people actually took direct steps toward trying to start a business. They felt pressure from their peers getting lucrative offers from consulting firms and such and said things like "I'm going to work for a few years and get some experience under my belt and then I'm going to start a business or join a startup." It seems what made these people happy was convincing themselves that they were planning a future that would best set them up to create this business and become rich at some point in the future. What made them get out of bed early and work hard was satisfying some false prerequisite that they dangled in front of their own face. When that was accomplished, they created another, and another, and another. It seems that actually is where their happiness came from- making themselves believe that they were progressing towards their goal.
The moral of this story seems to be that if you're too passionate about your passion, and become too emotionally invested, it can destroy you.<p>For this guy, the solution was to quit his passion and do something different. That may not be the best solution for all. By all means, try to do your passion. Sometimes it won't work out, but please don't let this discourage you!
> I got into the position where I had to report certain problems, like suspected drug use, gang activity, child abuse, and so on [...] the cynism began to grow on me<p>The reason for him leaving his dream job was completely localized. There are plenty of ways to be involved in teaching besides being in front of a school class. I see this more as moving away from a bad situation, an unhappy collusion of events that got in the way of his chosen path, not a matter of <i>passion vs day job</i>.
I think passion is something you do regardless of financial rewards. How many pop artists succeeded with the sole intent of making money? Even those superficial rappers touting material gains probably enjoy the craft (at least the ones with staying power). I think the intersection of passion and success (defined materially) is when you consistently get better at your passion to the point where you can offer value above and beyond others who share your passion.<p>A case in point is exercise. I see lots of people in the gym who are committed and even fanatic about achieving their fitness goals. However, the lot of them wouldn't be able to cover living costs if they tried to do it as a job. Still, it doesn't stop them from coming to the gym and spending a significant part of their income on their passion.<p>Just because you don't make money directly from your passion doesn't mean much to me either because it can drive success in other parts of your life.<p>I also think people confuse passion with strong appreciation. For example, you can love rock music and claim to be passionate about it. However, you might not be passionate enough to push yourself to practice the craft of music only to listen and critique it.<p>The confusing thing about this article is that he does manage to transition his career into something vaguely related and not something completely different. Maybe it's the teaching aspect that's really important to him but it still seems like a reasonable career path in line with his core passion.
I have started a company and sold it. Wasn't enough to retire yet and now I have a 9-5 consultancy job that pays a lot of money. But I don't have any stress any more and family time.<p>So both sides of the coin and depending where you are in life there is no right or no wrong. So judge only for yourself what's right for you. And keep your opinions/judgements about other peoples career paths to yourself.
It is not doing what you love, but loving what you do.<p>Obviously you must make your job compatible with your personality first so you can get to love it.<p>If you are introverted and you choose a job in witch you are never alone you won't stand it, no matter how much you try(as you try harder you will hate it more and more).<p>If you are extroverted and you are required to work focused on single problems long hours alone...
I'm at a startup and am having exactly the same thoughts. I'm passionate about starting a company but MY company, not the one I'm working at. I've felt recently that taking a bigco job (with more pay and less hours) and bootstrapping my own company might be the better path. Please talk me down!
" It’s just something I do for money, nothing more or less." Amen to that. To be able to close the door behind you and not think or worry about work at all is a pleasure in itself. To be completely, utterly, un-encumbered by work for most of the day and all of the weekend is a joy.
I think the takeaway is to examine the effect a job can have on you. It can go both ways.. if you do something you're incredibly passionate about but it physically/mentally wears you out, that can just be as bad as taking a job you have no interest in that makes you question life.
> get out there and grab what affords you the most opportunities to be the best overall person you can be<p>This is the key point of the entire post. Most people assume that "doing what you love" will provide these opportunities. However, this is not always the case.
I got a bachelors in Physics, and I am not qualified for very much. Does anyone know if I can go back to school to become an accountant without an undergrad degree in accounting? I would adore one of these lovely boring jobs.
Reminds me of a quote I heard somewhere from someone...(I apologize for butchering this but my memory is a bit hazy):<p>"Never make music because you have to, otherwise it will be the end of you..."<p>Corrections welcomed!