Why 'Follow Your Passion' is Great Advice, Actually
Have you ever met up with a friend who tells you about a big new dream? They have a brilliant business idea, they’re moving to Hawaii, or they’re taking up scuba diving. As a good friend, you’re excited! It sounds amazing.
But the next time you see them, the business was too much work, Hawaii is too hot, and scuba diving is too expensive. Besides, it’s all about buying a pub now!
It doesn’t take long to spot the pattern.
If “follow your passion” means following whatever you’re curious about at this exact second, then it is terrible advice. But if it’s such bad advice, why do we keep giving it?
The Passion Problem
The truth is that just because you have found your passion doesn’t mean you know how to help others find theirs. To the person who has found “it,” the advice is excellent. To the person still searching, it is infuriating—even damaging.
The person searching for their passion is usually longing for a sense of meaning that their current life isn’t providing. When you are stuck, it’s often precisely because you have lost touch with where your passions really lie.
Telling a stuck person to “follow their passion” is like a doctor telling a sick patient: “Ah, I see the problem. You are ill and you need to get better. Take care!” It is a diagnosis, not a solution. It just tells the seeker they are doing something wrong and suggests they run harder on the same treadmill.
The Latin Secret
This version of “passion” teaches us that it should be easy. It suggests that the moment we hit a wall, it must not have been our passion after all.
But there is another kind of passion. There is the “passion of the Christ.”
Our word passion comes from the Latin passio. It means suffering. Yeah, really. Just suffering.
Not so sexy anymore, right? But hear me out. This is where the idea of passion originated. Over time, the meaning shifted from being specifically about the crucifixion of Jesus to intense desire and emotion. The symbolic link was the depth of love that drove Jesus to endure such horrific suffering.
There is a version of “follow your passion” that actually means: Follow what you are willing to suffer for.
This is a much better starting point for finding your calling. We are only willing to suffer for things we value deeply. These things aren’t mere curiosities that fade on a rainy day. These passions stick around when things get tough.
It’s the artist who sculpts into the late hours without noticing the time.
It’s the underpaid teacher who goes above and beyond to help a struggling pupil.
It’s the Olympic gymnast who trades every lie-in for a marginal gain in strength.
It’s the writer who bleeds over a single sentence to communicate something special.
Pick Your Poison
All ambitions hit hurdles eventually. When you hit that first wall and the work becomes grueling, you face a decision:
Is this a sign that it’s not my passion, or is this a chance to prove that it is?
President Theodore Roosevelt once said: “Far and away the greatest prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”
Author Mark Manson puts it more bluntly: “Pick your poison.” It’s an acknowledgment that all choices come with taxes and tradeoffs, and so we may as well choose struggles that we relish or find meaningful. We shouldn’t ask, “What do I want to enjoy?” but rather, “What pain do I want to sustain?”
Finding something you’re willing to suffer for isn’t a silver bullet, but it is a reliable compass. Where will it lead you? What is truly worth doing to you? What is your favorite suffering?
Godspeed,
TMo
KINDLING QUESTION
—John Vervaeke