How the hell do you find your passion?

23 comments

1. try things and see what sticks.

   if it sparks joy, keep doing it. if it makes you feel miserable, leave it.

2. I’m 41 – I’m supposed to have a passion?

3. I think it’s important to find a thing you do for work that you like, but you don’t have to enjoy doing it in your free time. Usually, work will feel like work, but it can still be more enjoyable if it aligns with something you’re interested in. I was led to believe for awhile that what I do in my free time is what I should want to do for work, but that has not personally been the case. What do your daily habits look like rn? Sometimes just getting up and getting some sunlight helps me be in the right mindset to think about what I want to do.

4. You have 45 years to go before you retire, better pick something and go with it.

   It’s rare to be passionate about work, most of us just do it for the pay check

5. This might not be the answer your looking for but here is what happened with me.

   When I was 20 years old my only hobby was video games. I literally had nothing else going on for me and no asperations to go to college. I fell in love with the Iron Man movie from 2008 and my cousin got me my first Iron Man comic book.

   I decided to go to my local comic book store and buy a few comics. The comic book guy I had was a really nice guy and he helped me to pick out the right comic books. for months I would read comic books and I became a regular at his store. I loved them so much that they helped me to get through a lot of my stressful times. Collecting comic books helped me make more friends and gain a lot more confidence in myself. Today I run an online comic book reading club that I run on Mondays (because Mondays are the worst).

   That wasn’t the only time though. When I was 29 years old my brother and a few of my friends convinced me to play Dungeons and Dragons. We played my friends campaign and it was awful. He favoured one player out of everyone else and no one else got a spotlight. I thought I could do better and I failed (I didn’t have a plan). So I went back and hit the drawing board. I came up with a more complex story and different players. I really enjoyed writing this story. Eventually I had a friend who approached me and said “hey I was wondering if you could make a session for me and a few of my friends. We have never played before, but we are interested”. I decided to do it and it was great. It encouraged me to make another campaign with other people. To make the world more immersive, I decided to make my own battlemaps. It would take hours to do all of this but it was so fun for me that I didn’t even notice how long it took. As of right now, I have a total of 16 players (across 3 campaigns).

   I spoke with my therapist and we were talking about a lot of the issues I was having regarding my self worth. When I talked about comic books, video games and D&D he noticed I would light up and I enjoyed talking about those hobbies. My therapist helped me to realize that I love my hobbies so much that I turned it into a platform so I can share my happiness with others. He helped me to understand that my true calling is to help people and be active in a community.

   I know it’s not really a career, but this is where I get my passion from.

6. i knew it as is found it.

   i was really impressed as a child that someone fixed my computer, so i wanna fix other computer as well

   i can imagine doing this for really long time

7. Eh, anything that becomes a job is probably going to suck because, no matter what, someone is going to be telling you what to do.

   I’d get over the passion thing and just try shit you don’t hate until you find something that clicks.

   That’s what worked for me anyway

8. Realise that you can have passions, and you can have a job. They don’t have to overlap.

9. >Literally every second of the day, I want something else

   Serial hobbyist here who is distracted by anything and everything that is new and interesting. It took me a really, really long time to realize THAT was my passion. Once I had that epiphany, I was able to take that and apply it to an actual career. Or more accurately – *careers*.

   In my current job, I’m the jack of all trades. My colleagues know they can come to me with pretty much anything and I can help because of the collection of random shit (knowledge, skills, trainings, education, experiences, etc.) I’ve accumulated over the years, and they know I’ll be motivated by the novelty of doing something new and different.

10. Hey friend, you sound like you’re going through maybe a little of what I did at your age.

    I also got a filmmaking degree, and fresh out of school I felt very lost and overwhelmed and confused. I felt like I had *some* level of interest or excitement about pursuing my film career, but I also felt like I didn’t have the “passion” that my peers seemed to have—that seemingly limitless drive, and sense that “this is what I want to do with my life even if it kills me!”

    Reflecting now, almost 15 years later, I realize a few things.

    1. “Passion” is overrated. People act like we need to find our passion and let it guide our whole lives They tell us this especially when we’re around your age, and *especially* in creative fields like filmmaking. Here’s a secret: whatever you end up doing for a living will always, on some level, be “work”.
    2. What you’re feeling right now is super normal. Those first few years out in the “real world” are confusing for most people, and we all just had to wing it and figure it out. You’re in good company, so try not to stress about it too much.
    3. Time is very much on your side! You have so much time ahead of you to explore, try new things, or change paths if it’s not working out. Try not to fall into a perfectionist mindset about it, where you have to be on a set “path” from now to the end of time. Course-correcting in your 20s is nothing compared to later in your life, so now is the time to experiment!
    4. Commitment to something *develops* into passion and purpose, not the other way around! Choose a direction and commit to it for a time. At least 6 months to a year. Try to find strategies to minimize all your second-guessing and just focus on one thing. Set a fixed date in the future at which point you’ll sit down and re-assess if you’re happy with this direction—this way you give yourself permission to make the change, and can stay focused on one thing in the meantime.
    5. Pay attention to the moment-to-moment. You’ll enjoy your work so much more if it’s something you like actually doing day to day. Sometimes we fall in love more with the idea of something than the actual process. See what you actually enjoy *doing*.
    6. A great life is a balanced life. People who have fiery passions in one area often neglect other very important aspects of their lives. I am an editor and post-production professional, and the most passionate editors I know have major health issues, for example. They are so much more passionate and successful than I am, but they are overweight, never exercise, use all their downtime watching movies and shows to develop their skills more, and have sacrificed their social lives. Sometimes I’m envious, but then I realize that I’ve managed to prioritize my relationships and health more, I’ve been able to travel and have adventures, and I get to go home at a reasonable time (usually). Don’t take for granted the effort one must put in to things outside of work and passion to remain healthy and balanced!

11. That fairy tale shit doesn’t work for most of us. Work comes first. Get a job at a place you could see yourself moving up into a role you’d not mind. Then keep working, as you do you’ll get a better idea of what you actually care about in regards to employment. You can’t wait for the perfect job or aha moment to come because that could take years and now you’ve wasted those years unemployed or working a job just to get you by. The two fields you’ve chosen to study are tough so you may not even using either degree in your career and that’s ok.

12. If you keep wondering how you’re supposed to live your life then before you know it, it will be over and you haven’t done any living for yourself.

    Stop putting so much weight on everything. No one knows why we are here. Might as well make the most of it and just be happy.

13. I turn 30 in a few months, and I’m still just as clueless about that stuff as I was when I was 16.
    Once you start working full time and get buried in bills and responsibilities, you don’t have a lot of time to figure it out anymore…so make sure ifnyou can, to really spend some time soul searching and see which calls to you more.

    Maybe follow the psychology route and allow filmmaking to be a hobby on the side (that could even net you some extra money)?

14. i think this is because you think too much about an ‘end goal’. This may likely have gotten you to forget that pursuing a passion is a journey requiring you to try a lot of things til you find out what creates that spark.

    Separating work and sparing time withing your day to figure out a hobby/interest would be a good start

15. Don’t get lost in the words ‘passion, purpose, meaning’ etc… they make you think in black and white, and you get depressed trying to find a perfect answer to something that may not ever have one. For a lot of people life is more in the grey area of things, where you might enjoy lots of activities, but one specific thing is not your everything.

    Personally, I’ve never really cared about passions, purpose or meaning until I was told that I was supposed to have them, then my mind got lost in thoughts without great answers. I have always been about finding different ways to enjoy my time, adventuring, exploring, learning something new. So If I want to play the game regarding what is my purpose? What am I passionate about? I would say to explore, adventure, find different ways to enjoy my time on this planet.

16. I think your making a mistake by assuming your passion has to be something you can turn into a career.

    I’m passionate about raising my children and providing them with a nice life. To do that, I work in IT because it pays well and still allows me quality time at home. I don’t love my job, but I don’t hate it. So, since I want to provide for my family, I find it easy to wake up everyday and go to work.

17. Passion in this sense refers to an emotional connection that we express through action. It helps to understand what it is about your interests that bring you joy emotionally. Film and psychology are broad terms, narrow it down to what you like most about them and let that be the driving force behind your pursuits.

18. You dont. I think the one life passion or goal is kind of overrated and unrealistic. You dont ever really find your way, just do something. Take action, dont sit there and think. Just start doing something, see how it goes and reevaluate. If you like doing it or it works, keep doing it. If you dont, then do something.

    Just remember you’ll never think your way out of problems. You’ll just think yourself in a circle. Action is the antidote to despair. Once you start doing something youll find the path opens up a lot more clearly to you

19. Fuck finding a passion. This is the most impractical lie that society tells young people. Find something that you can tolerate doing that you can develop a skill around and get people to pay you to do. You can use your job to support your life outside of work and have fun with hobbies on your own time.

    Film making is cool and all, but the people who can actually make a living doing it are far smaller than the number of people who think it’s cool and would like to do it for a living. If it’s something that you feel you need to pursue, feel like your life would be incomplete without trying and are willing to take on poverty for the chance of giving it a shot then don’t let me tell you not to do it. Otherwise try to be more practical.

    Likewise with psychology. There are some jobs that a degree in psychology can slot you into with other training, but if there isn’t a specific career that taking psychology for is building towards then you need to reconsider. There are so many people who study psychology because they think that it’s an interesting subject, and it doesn’t at all lead to a marketable skill for most people who just get an undergrad degree in it.

    Step 1, think about a job that you think would be tolerable and you have the aptitude to do, has reasonable job prospects and salary as a marketable and needed skill, then step 2 get the training and education to perform the job.

20. I’m the same age as you are, so remember that when you read this. I’m uncommonly passionate about a great many things. But passion doesn’t just hit you out of the blue and then stick with you for life. It has to be cared for, and paid attention to. Nothing comes for free. You have to work on it. The good thing about working on your passion is that you’ll know pretty quickly if it *isn’t* your passion. I guess the most important thing is to never stop moving/doing.

    And there isn’t just one passion per lifetime. There’s lots to choose from. It all depends on how much you’ve nurtured it and which one you care about most. And if you’re having a hard time making decisions, a little practicality doesn’t hurt.
    I always wanted to go to car design school, until I wanted to go to music school. Practicality helped me out there. I could play music being a car designer, but I couldn’t design cars being a musician. I design cars now, and play music on my own time.

21. You try a bunch of shit.

    You might not find exactly what you want to do right away, but you’ll find what you definitely don’t want to do. Then that will give you an idea of where to go.

    For instance, let’s say you try computer science. You end up hating it. Okay, that’s fine. What didn’t you like about it? You list the reasons of what you didn’t like, and that list should inform what you try next. If you didn’t like the technical, problem solving part of it, then it wouldn’t make much sense to try another technical, problem solving field, now would it?

22. That’s what I always ask myself but I believe that the day will come when I will know what my passion really is. Never lose hope.

23. > I also know that I should find my passion and everything else comes after that.

    This is one of those things that people say that they don’t mean at face value. I haven’t heard anyone from their late 20’s – 50’s mention following passions unless they were giving cliché advice to younger people or part of a multilevel marketing scam company. Frankly any phrases that is, “blah blah … your passion… blah blah” is most likely coming from a motivational speaker (paid to sound inspirational) or a school administrator (paid to get you to keep paying tuition). You’re still a couple years off from realizing it.

    I completely understand psychology is somewhat fun to learn about, but for the vast majority psych majors you’re just paying someone to guide you through a mental masturbation exercise. If you really want to learn more about it, just pursue it on your own time without accruing the debt. Chances are you will never use that degree for anything (again, like the overwhelming majority of psych majors).

    I would guess that 95% or more of us do not follow our “passion” for multiple reasons: passions change, that passion doesn’t pay the bills, your passion just becomes a job you hate, etc. Even those of us with very good jobs in a field that we chose don’t want to do it everyday. You more then likely have no idea what working in your given field will be like in reality. So you want advice? You completed one degree, go get a job in that field. Find something about that job you want to be the best at or be “the go to guy” for. Enjoy excelling at something and the respect of your colleagues that need you. Make as much money as you can while maintaining your work life balance, and then find hobbies that you can enjoy regardless of if they will ever earn you money.