The problem with following your passion

[Olm the Water King]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...roblem-with-following-your-passion/?tid=sm_fb

The problem with following your passion

By Jon Jachimowicz and Sam McNerney November 6

In a recent biography of Elon Musk, Bloomberg technology writer Ashlee Vance documents how the entrepreneur transformed the electric car industry, launched rockets into space, developed solar technology and devised plans to colonize Mars. Vance emphasizes Musk’s diligence and unwavering zeal, not just his intelligence and eccentricities. Like Steve Jobs, Musk is a mercurial perfectionist, prone to moments of rage, spurred by passion.

It’s tempting to read about someone like Elon Musk and conclude that passion is a prerequisite for success. And months from now, it’s likely that a suite of commencement speakers will stand in front of class after class of new graduates, remarking that “the only way to do great work is to love what you do,” as Steve Jobs told the Stanford class of 2005.

But is passion really an essential condition for leading a successful life? That idea has come under attack in the last few years. Passion is increasingly labeled as mere post hoc storytelling, an empty cliché that makes for a good narrative. Cal Newport, an assistant professor at Georgetown University and author of So Good They Can’t Ignore You, insists the passion mantra is not just unoriginal but misleading. The goal shouldn’t be to find your passion—as if it has been there, undiscovered, from the beginning—but to create one.

...

 

[Cellmold]

The creation of passion. I like that; I've often wondered how much talk of passion is influenced or brought on by the high of post - success.

Isn't part of making efforts towards self awareness to do with understanding and influencing the previously unseen automated ticks in the brain for a more understood passion?

Maybe that's just my interpretation though.

Also saying that, there are some things I'd find it hard to change angles enough to see the passion in.

 

[Forever]

Right instead of trying to find something that naturally comes to you, which could take years if not focused. Turn what you do into what you love. I think this is quite inspriring. But I believe you should at least like what you're doing if you don't love it.

 

[Virtual ghost]

I think that the largest problem with passion is that passion can make you follow the paths that are not trully best for you. While sometimes the selected paths don't even make any real sense, but passion can easily disregard that.

 

[Olm the Water King]

I think that the largest problem with passion is that passion can make you follow the paths that are not trully best for you. While sometimes the selected paths don't even make any real sense, but passion can easily disregard that.

That's one problem. A subset of this problem is that it can make you strive for a goal that isn't even possible.

 

[SearchingforPeace]

For myself, I see the problem with passion is that it might lead you to places you strongly desire going to, but are unwilling or unable to make the cut.

Very few people are talented enough for the NBA, no matter the passion of some players. Likewise, not everyone is going to make it as an actor. Many are unwilling to devote the time to it.

But without passion, we might get lost. The book Moneyball talks about Billy Beane as a baseball player before he went into management. He was an ultra talented baseball player in all aspects of the game. He had a scholarship to Stanford that he really wanted to take, but his parents pushed him to sign for baseball because they wanted his signing bonus, which they quickly wasted.

Beane was a very average player playing well below his talent. Where other players couldn't wait for an at-bat, he just didn't want to screw things up. He quit playing well before his playing days were over and went into scouting, then management. With a lack of passion, his talent was useless.

 

[Poki]

Passion can lead us astray just as much as it can give us the fire to go after what we want. It's one of many traits that help us, its not the end all be all trait. Those who think otherwise are blinded by it.

 

[cascadeco]

Passion can lead us astray just as much as it can give us the fire to go after what we want. It's one of many traits that help us, its not the end all be all trait. Those who think otherwise are blinded by it.

Yeah, I agree it is often very important, but it's definitely not the only ingredient tied to success.

 

[1487610420]

 

[cascadeco]

BUT... 'success' is defined differently by each person. For one person, passion may be the only thing that they need or want to feel they are living a 'successful' life.

If by 'success' one is talking about a super successful business, though, then other ingredients are required -- or the passionate person needs to outsource everything they don't want to do (and have the money to do so ) - lol

 

[1487610420]

 

[ceecee]

For myself, I see the problem with passion is that it might lead you to places you strongly desire going to, but are unwilling or unable to make the cut.

Very few people are talented enough for the NBA, no matter the passion of some players. Likewise, not everyone is going to make it as an actor. Many are unwilling to devote the time to it.

But without passion, we might get lost. The book Moneyball talks about Billy Beane as a baseball player before he went into management. He was an ultra talented baseball player in all aspects of the game. He had a scholarship to Stanford that he really wanted to take, but his parents pushed him to sign for baseball because they wanted his signing bonus, which they quickly wasted.

Beane was a very average player playing well below his talent. Where other players couldn't wait for an at-bat, he just didn't want to screw things up. He quit playing well before his playing days were over and went into scouting, then management. With a lack of passion, his talent was useless.

I saw Billy Beane as being unable to handle failure. He had no experience with it until he went to the show. His regret was being a 40+year old with a high school education. But he loved baseball and that's why he was open to the sabermetric innovation. So - take what you love and make it your calling, he's a good example of it.

 

[kelric]

It's always seemed to me that following your passion is a luxury, one associated very strongly with having the freedom to fail. Many people don't. Struggling to pay the bills and working three part-time jobs? Someone telling you to pursue a passion for international travel is insultingly unrealistic. Another person with greater means may be able to turn that into a career reviewing hotels, but almost everyone with a passion for travel winds up working at something they don't enjoy nearly as much (if at all) to travel when they can save up the money and time for a vacation.

The whole "follow your passion" genre of inspirational speeches is almost exclusively authored by those who have come out on top of a brutal process of selection. How many speeches do folks with a passion for electronics but who failed to make a career of it get to make, compared to one Steve Jobs? I'm guessing pretty close to zero. That doesn't mean that Jobs and others are inauthentic when trying to inspire others to follow passions, but for a lot of people, it's simply not realistic -- either by circumstances, talent, luck, etc. It's a version of the same fallacy that confuses necessary effort with sufficient effort. Working hard is often necessary to succeed. It's not nearly as often sufficient for outstanding success.

Sort of a pessimistic outlook on it, but that's always the way it's seemed to me. The OP's article on creating passion is probably closer to realistic, but seems like it's trying to conflate "following your passion" with "work hard, care, and make the best of your circumstances and abilities". The latter seems like a pretty positive and realistic approach for many people (much more so than "follow your passion").

I saw Billy Beane as being unable to handle failure.

I think that this ties into what I mentioned above... even if you may have some freedom to fail, if you don't feel that you do, it's very hard to take risks. This is probably one of the defining flaws that I see in myself. I've *never* felt that I've the freedom to fail, at anything. On the other hand, I've made pretty conservative choices and have done fine with them, in most respects -- but I almost certainly could have done better in many aspects if I'd had less fear of failure.

 

[SearchingforPeace]

I saw Billy Beane as being unable to handle failure. He had no experience with it until he went to the show. His regret was being a 40+year old with a high school education. But he loved baseball and that's why he was open to the sabermetric innovation. So - take what you love and make it your calling, he's a good example of it.

The book makes it clear he lacked the drive to play. I just looked up his stats. He only played 6 years and was a career .219 BA. He was 27 when he went into scouting....

It has been a few years, but iirc, it mentions he lacked the passion of his teammate, Dykstra who couldn't wait to hit.

Yes, lack of experience with failure was huge for him, back he just didn't want to be out there swinging the bat....

 

[Mole]

Walking Talking Cliches

The problem with following your passion is in the word passion itself.

The word passion is now a cliche that has been in too many mouths. Everyone, from the most junior clerk to the parliamentary secretary puts the word passion in their resume.

And the sad fact is if we speak in cliches, we think in cliches, and if we think in cliches, we live a cliched life.

And cliches, as you know, form the foundation of archetypes, like the sixteen archetypes of mbti.

And yet how we long to know what archetype we belong to. We want to walk the talk of cliches. And so we become walking talking cliches.

 

[Coriolis]

I think that the largest problem with passion is that passion can make you follow the paths that are not trully best for you. While sometimes the selected paths don't even make any real sense, but passion can easily disregard that.

I would argue that that isn't real passion, more like infatuation. Just like lust is not to be confused with love. How to tell the difference? Real passion (like love) will stand the test of time. If you try to make do with something else, even out of necessity, you will keep coming back to it and not be able to leave it alone, if only in your spare time and daydreaming.

That's one problem. A subset of this problem is that it can make you strive for a goal that isn't even possible.

Sometimes you don't know what is possible until you try, and try persistently. I suspect most of the world's greatest inventions and discoveries were deemed impossible by most folks other than those who made them.

All this being said, I think a true passion will align at least with your own gifts and talents, otherwise it would simply be a continuing source of frustration. Part of what keeps passion going is that it makes you feel fulfilled, like you are developing and using your potential.

 

[Avocado]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...roblem-with-following-your-passion/?tid=sm_fb

my thoughts exactly

 

[Mole]

Another problem in talking about passion is talking about it rationally when passion is irrational. We should remember: the worst are full of passionate intensity.

 

[Jaguar]

I would argue that that isn't real passion, more like infatuation. Just like lust is not to be confused with love. How to tell the difference? Real passion (like love) will stand the test of time. If you try to make do with something else, even out of necessity, you will keep coming back to it and not be able to leave it alone, if only in your spare time and daydreaming.

I'm on board with that. Real passion will keep knocking on the door no matter how many times you tell it to shut up.

 

[nonsequitur]

https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/do-what-you-love-dispelling-the-myth

Follow your bliss. We’ve heard it, aspired to it and perhaps proffered it up as advice despite not having attained it ourselves, but do we know where it really leads?

Often to disappointment and exploitation argues University of Melbourne’s Miya Tokumitsu, whose analysis of the ‘do you what you love’ mantra went viral after appearing in Jacobin, honing in on our preoccupation with work and fulfillment.

I think today work is everything to people. Work was always a big part of people’s lives, it’s what you depended on for your livelihood. But now, with the ‘do what you love’ paradigm it’s also supposed to be the place where you find yourself and fulfil your destiny, where you fully realise your own self-hood.

Dr Tokumitsu is an art historian specialising in the medieval, renaissance and baroque periods. As someone who analyses images for a living, she wondered about the profusion of utopian, bucolic workspaces she kept encountering in magazines, blogs and other social media.

She was similarly struck when Apple founder Steve Jobs died, and, as a tribute, people all over Silicon Valley turned up in Jobs’ trademark black turtleneck and blue jeans. What significance did these items of clothing carry?

“It was just so visually powerful: these totally banal clothing items, almost aggressively banal for such a powerful person. And they had become metonyms for Apple, and beyond Apple. Metonyms for genius and a kind of enlightened way of working.”

Jobs’ turtleneck and jeans projected a worker persona that was casual, passionate and authentic. He was bringing his real self – not a phony, dressed-up version – to work, and he could do that because he loved it.

What Dr Tokumitsu had identified was an important shift or realignment of the protestant work ethic (a term coined by Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 1904–05). Under the influence of the protestant work ethic, work was a moral endeavour: we worked hard and this made us good, pleasure did not figure.

Then the summer of love arrived, and pleasure became a moral force.

In the 60s and 70s, whether it was eastern or western religion, or even psychedelic drugs, finding the authentic you became a righteous thing to do, and pursuing pleasure the new virtue. This became entangled with the work ethic: if working is good and wealth accumulation is good and uncovering a real you is good, and we put those together, doing what you love is the best possible expression of being good.

You hear this message repeated by people like Steve Jobs and Oprah Winfrey, ‘you have to live your best life’ and ‘you have to fulfil your destiny’, and it’s really a killing message.

It’s a killing message because in swallowing the ‘do what you love’ rhetoric wholesale, we haven’t grappled with its shadow: it sets us up with grand expectations, makes us feel like failures if we don’t follow our passions or don’t have any, makes us self-centred and sets us up for exploitation.

In a world where workers are working longer hours, ‘passion’ has become shorthand for being prepared to work beyond the call of duty. In being so happy about what we’re doing, we shouldn’t mind working late, on our weekends or evenings.

“Most people can tell themselves ‘you’re really doing it because you love it’, which on one hand can take the edge off, but it’s really dangerous because it can really lead people to their own exploitation.”

And the rhetoric is travelling further than creative, sought-after jobs, and trickling into low wage sectors. Tokumitsu cites an ad she saw in Craigslist asking for house cleaners who were ‘passionate about cleaning’.

“There are cynical actors out there who are absolutely using this to exploit people. Especially with the gig economy or freelancing in, for instance, journalism. There’s a lot of I’ll just write for exposure, I’ll just write to get a by-line, I’ll just write to get a portfolio.”

In addition to this, employers are demanding this authenticity be mined for profit, where workers are being asked to only display positive attitudes to their work, and in service-oriented cultures, emotions are being sold. Happy, fulfilled, passionate service delivered by happy, fulfilled, passionate workers.

It’s deeply intrusive, argues Dr Tokumitsu, “You can’t even have your own thoughts, it’s a kind of surveillance that has a nice veneer, but not even your own mind can be your retreat.”

And this extends to our home lives. Where we might have been expected to have a different persona at work and at home, increasingly the lines are blurring.

“The do what you love rhetoric, because it revolves around authenticity, insists there’s one only true way to be yourself: you have to be that way at work, and at home with your loved ones.
“It forces us to be public all the time – there’s no cycle any more. So it’s oppressive and exhausting.”

While Oprah, start-up gurus and successful artists might have good reason to recommend following their bliss, most of us find ourselves doling out the same mantra to children or people seeking career advice, without having thought it through.

You want to be encouraging, and what other advice is there to give? But we need to be talking about the other side of this, teaching young people how to make sure they’re not exploited and how to protect themselves.

“We also need to make sure they’re not being discouraged. A lot of pleasure and satisfaction in work comes from time. It comes with experience and there are no shortcuts to that. People assume that if it’s right it’s going to feel right straight away, and it’s going to come from passion.”

But passion, Dr Tokumitsu argues, is a specific temperament and one not everyone shares.

“A family therapist who contacted me (in response to the original article) said he’s actually seen a lot of stress and anxiety in his younger patients because they don’t know what they love to do and they feel like something’s wrong with them.

“It’s also a very narrow perspective on getting pleasure from work. There are other ways that people have found satisfaction and purpose through work, that’s not just being blissed out by the actual tasks of the work. Even by simply acknowledging that you’re caring for your family or that you’re contributing to your community.

“So these are other ways of finding pleasure in work that aren’t all about ‘what is it exactly that I want to be doing at this moment?’ I think it’s creating a lot of disappointment and disillusionment.
We seem to have forgotten that there are other ways of loving what you do that don’t have to be profitable.

As an example, Dr Tokumitsu cites the documentary, Finding Vivian Maier.

Maier was a nanny in Chicago, as well as an amazing photographer who hid her photographs … nobody knew she had all this talent until after she’d died. So much of the commentary in the film was, ‘she could have been a famous art photographer if she had just walked into a gallery in Chicago’.

“The narrative keeps returning to that notion, but she wasn’t necessarily a nanny who was a frustrated talent but rather, she used her wages as a nanny to be able to take pictures. And to keep it to herself.”

If we can deconstruct the conflation of work, pleasure and profit it’s possible to see an array of configurations of these elements in our lives, without the added stress of having to find it all in our day jobs.