What do you think of the advice, follow your passion?

[Abcdenfp]

Cultivate an internal passion for yourself and build a future around that. Focus on character, discipline, and where you want to be at 50, should you make it that far.

I have also always believed that, Ive seen people who build their passions around a job that is reliant on others and when they are forced to retire they cant figure out what to do. The job I do now is in an effort to support my writing dreams and hope of fixing up my apartment. But I feed my passions regularly learning to master them so that later on in life they sustain me. I followed one of my passions into my little restaurant and it almost ruined me financially. Was it worth is YES, i learned so much. The thing i keep reminding myself is that we are here for such a short time. If you wanna do it do it. How you follow your passion is totally individualistic I've just found this method works best for me

 

[Bacopa]

it's great when your passion is something useful to society

 

[agentwashington]

I think it's a useless advice. There are people whose passion is playing video games, but there are only so many competitive players in the world who can actually make a living out of it. The reality is that everybody has to make do with circumstances to make a living. Following your passion is for the privileged and lucky few.

 

[Lark]

I think it's a useless advice. There are people whose passion is playing video games, but there are only so many competitive players in the world who can actually make a living out of it. The reality is that everybody has to make do with circumstances to make a living. Following your passion is for the privileged and lucky few.

I think there's some truth in what you are saying, its probably a useful question to ask as to why its the preserve of the few and if that's such a good idea and also why is advice frequently dispensed in that way which does not account for how it is likely to be possible for the precious few.

 

[agentwashington]

I think there's some truth in what you are saying, its probably a useful question to ask as to why its the preserve of the few and if that's such a good idea and also why is advice frequently dispensed in that way which does not account for how it is likely to be possible for the precious few.

I think it's the preserve of the few who are either a) very lucky, b) have resources (including social capital) to develop their passions, c) don't need to make a living off their passions.

My dream is to become a professor one day, but to do that I would have to get a PhD. The problem with getting a PhD is that you need money to pay for school fees (existing resources) - either that or find funding (luck or social capital). The world isn't meritocratic, because if it were solely based off qualifications I have no doubt that I could achieve the dream.

I suspect the reason it's given as an advice which doesn't take into consideration all of these is because it comes from the privileged few. One of the ways I've seen privilege defined as is something that a person doesn't need to think about, because they don't lack it, so they don't have to think about it. They do put in hard work to make it that far, so they assume that it is all because of their hard work, when in truth it requires something more than hard work. That's my guess, anyway.

 

[Mole]

We are entranced when we follow our passions, so our work becomes a pleasure, and time disappears.

It takes 10,000 hours of practice to become a master, so we need to entrance ourselves every day,

So first we need to learn to enter and leave a trance for a particular purpose safely at will. A good place to start is, "The Way of Trance", by Dennis Wier, click https://tuxdoc.com/download/the-way-of-trance-dennis-wier_pdf.

So when we have learnt to entrance ourselves, if, for instance we wish to become a writer, we write every day.

 

[Burning Paradigm]

I understand the mentality, but I think it simplifies things a bit too much. The people who say it's from a point of privilege are correct to an extent; meritocracy and the resources to help people pursue their dreams become more fluid and fickle day by day in American society. That being said, I believe the best route (just off what I've observed in life) is to pursue what you are interested in doing and work to hone those skills, but be practical and patient about how to get there; not everyone starts at the same station, so you might face more obstacles than others in the process. It's even more important to have back-ups and not limit yourself if your main pursuit is something with an extremely competitive bottleneck (e.g. being a professional athlete). The part that also often gets lost in the weeds is to be honest with yourself about your motives and pursuits. There's nothing wrong with wanting to make money or having income security as your primary motive so long as you're not intending to inflict harm or behave unethically; if that's your passion or underlying motive, go for it.

 

[junathan]

I think it's the preserve of the few who are either a) very lucky, b) have resources (including social capital) to develop their passions, c) don't need to make a living off their passions.

My dream is to become a professor one day, but to do that I would have to get a PhD. The problem with getting a PhD is that you need money to pay for school fees (existing resources) - either that or find funding (luck or social capital). The world isn't meritocratic, because if it were solely based off qualifications I have no doubt that I could achieve the dream.

I suspect the reason it's given as an advice which doesn't take into consideration all of these is because it comes from the privileged few. One of the ways I've seen privilege defined as is something that a person doesn't need to think about, because they don't lack it, so they don't have to think about it. They do put in hard work to make it that far, so they assume that it is all because of their hard work, when in truth it requires something more than hard work. That's my guess, anyway.

I agree with you,

I think the idea of following your passion is applicable but what isn't is the fact that, some of us lack the talent/skills in order to transform that passion into reality.

To add on, I think ultimately whether the advice itself is applicable or not. Comes from your purpose and goals in life,

If the end goal here is to be happy and want to live the best life without feeling dreadful and dead inside for working daily. Then yes go ahead, follow your passion, because that will make you truly happy.

But if the end goal is to achieve something greater, and pursue a bigger dream like being a singer, professional gamer, etc. Then, the idea of passion has to be twisted into, if you have the talent or in the circumstances then yes follow your passion.