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

Wunjo

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In order for that passion to achieve more feasible results, while following your passion, let your reason eliminate the possible risks and misdirections along the way, in order to succeed. Applies to most things. Work and play, chaos and cosmos, disorder and order, love and war.
 

Magnus

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Hi, thanks to anyone who responds. So what do you think? Good advice? Cliche? Bad advice? Personally, I don't like it, but has it worn out its welcome? Thanks again to anyone who responds.
In the context of making a career, I always thought that advice was pretty retarded. I have more than one passion and the majority of my interests would make for lousy career choices (for various reasons).

Plus, let's face it. A lot of people's passion is video games.

But if this is offered as general life advice for seeking happiness... well, even there it has limitations but it's not terrible advice or anything.
 

Tina&Jane

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Overused and I don't think it's very helpful a lot of the time, or at least I don't think it's helped me very much. I'm not sure what my passion really is, other than researching topics I'm interested in, or solving a problem that really interests me. My approach to jobs was more about finding something that was reasonably interesting and would also pay the bills. I like what I do, but I probably wouldn't be doing it if I didn't get paid.
 

tony_goth

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It pretty much depends on one's adaptation skills.

Mine are almost nil. So I need to follow my passions because I don't really have a choice. I have to work by passion. And for people with low adaptation skills it's the same thing.

For people who're more adaptive, it depends on other factors. But I think work's main purpose is to earn money in a stable manner. This money may be partially spent to passions further.
 

Tengri

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Hi, thanks to anyone who responds. So what do you think? Good advice? Cliche? Bad advice? Personally, I don't like it, but has it worn out its welcome? Thanks again to anyone who responds.
Sure, it's definitely a cliche and slightly Pollyanna adage, but it does speak volumes for living consciously and meeting personal potential. Its overuse does not automatically cancel out its worth as good advice: just as rare or esoteric insights don't reveal what mundane experience can't in daily life. Following impulses, natural inclinations, passions that express underdeveloped parts of yourself is an end in itself - nor do you have to leap through some proverbial burning rite of passage, meet the acknowledgment or permission of others to do so, or reach an endpoint in the process. As a cautionary though, following any passions at the risk of disrupting emotional and financial security borders more on obsession than the former. That being said, it's perfectly healthy to live out life phases and explore the parts of yourself neglected (unexpressed dreams) in the tunnel-vision of family life, education, job training, and development of singular personhood in these roles. Passions may also be symptomatic of skipping important stages in earlier life (as in the case of childhood play and freedom, sexual experimentation, and parent-child relationships) in which case 'living your passions' is more about self-discovery and unfurling embedded parts of yourself lost in the sheaves of memory. It's up to each person to determine for themselves where their passions are rooted.
 

Norrsken

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I ran away from such advice all of my life and it only ended in misery.
So I'm following it and it actually feels like I'm looking forward to something for the first time ever. It's a nice feeling.
 

Lark

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Doesn't work

Yeah, that's my view too pretty much.

It can lead to situations in which you're positively disadvantaged or liable to different sorts of exploitation too.

The less others know about you and what you're passionate about the better in my experience.
 

Lark

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lol i guess.

I was talking more-so about deciding one's career based on a 'passion'. Usually it's the other way around, where one becomes good in their skillset and by becoming good they become passionate.

What you're talking about seems to be security through obscurity regarding defending against social engineering. Usually security through obscurity is not a great defensive measure, though.

Nawh, I was talking about in terms of career choice.

Social engineering happens in most contexts, definitely within the workplace, management is nothing other than engineering outcomes within teams and the people who make them up.

You could meet management which is conscientious, considers human resources to be different to any other sort of resources, supports passionate staff but you could as easily encounter management which would see all that totally different.

That sort of management will consider human resources are just to be exploited and dispensed with, reducing people to refuse like anything else, they wont support any potential or real rivals to themselves from within their teams, they'll also see if they can exploit natural interests/passions to get people to over extend themselves and neglect proper rest or self-care.

The point for that type of management is the work itself doesnt matter, they dont care, they can do a great impression of caring if they think that will play well with others, but they realistically dont, code, caring for the elderly, packing cans of beans, its all the same pretty much and just a means to an end. Usually promotion and self-promotion. In the final instance people are just means to an end too for the same people.
 

Lark

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What you're talking about seems to be security through obscurity regarding defending against social engineering. Usually security through obscurity is not a great defensive measure, though.

The idea of whether or not people should aspire to a private life and whether or not privacy ought to be respected by society at large is a good question.

I do think it would be preferable to a lot of the social engineering which does appear to be pushed by both left and right.

I'm skeptical as to whether or not either actively engaging with politics, civil society etc. is any greater defence against social engineering than the alternative.
 

Shadow Play

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It's about striking up a balance. It's generally not a good idea to study something you're not interested in, since your academic performance is affected by your level of enthusiasm. That said, unless you happen to live in a country which provides free tertiary education, maybe avoid accumulating a small fortune of debt if it's not going to pay off in a good career. There are other options available. Think of tertiary education as an investment of your time and money. You'd want a return on your investment, right?
 

Tomb1

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It's only good advice for people that have the luxury to follow their passion but terrible advice in the guts of life.
 

Greed

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my passion is stripping naked, oiling myself down, and dancing in the road. sure, other people are told to follow their passion. but when i do, i just get arrested!
 

Peter Deadpan

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My passions change direction like the winds of a tornado, yet I'm always stuck inactive in the eye of the storm.
 

Agent Washington

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It's just a way of prettying up the marketplace and pretending that jobs are actually hobbies so that the your labour can be profitted off of by others and it won't be that obvious since now newspapers and whatever websites these days can talk about ~following your passion~ with some posterboy with ridiculously good luck.

Unless your passion is self-employment, in which case, good luck.
 

Lexicon

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‘Follow your passion’ doesn’t have to be an either/or thing, imo. Calibrate your expectations when it comes to how stable or lucrative it might be, and how much you need it to be. What’s the endgame? Ideally, just a sense of purpose & fulfillment, I’d say. Different for everyone, though.


If it’s truly a passion, there is no choice. You gravitate toward that dream. It’s part of you. You can explore different ways to bring in more income when what you love isn’t enough on its own.




Or y’know.. just go through the motions of living. Until you’re not.

 

Morpeko

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I want to slap people who say that without elaboration, it's just extremely impractical.
 

Mole

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The worst are full of passionate intensity, and the best lack all conviction.

'Passion' is a buzz word, a cliche, that signals the virtue of the passionate.

No resume is complete without a claim to be passionate about the work.

From the lowest clerk to highest paid CEO, all are passionate about the work.

The passionate live to work, rather than work to live.
 

Peter Deadpan

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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.
 
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