“Find Your Passion”
We’ve all heard the phrase “find your passion” a million and a half times. Throughout my high school career, I kept encountering this phrase as I read a variety of articles and books on how to get into the top colleges in the nation. Everything I found told me I just needed to “find my passion,” dedicate a lot of time to it and then I would be able to go to any university in the world and be successful.
I ended up at a top institution, but it wasn’t my dream school. I didn’t find my passion in high school. In fact, I left high school thinking that this whole “passion” thing was just a big lie that successful people told younger folks in order to try and explain how they got to where they were. It made no sense to me that someone could just pick something up for a second and suddenly it could become their “passion.” After all, it was just a matter of finding it - like with a shovel and a treasure map, right? Like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?
It wasn’t until I stumbled upon an article called “The Crossroads of Should and Must” by Elle Luna that I started to rethink my cynical outlook on “passion”. It talked about a lot of interesting ideas, but what stood out to me that, for once, “finding my passion” was accompanied by some actionable steps - looking forward, thinking about what impact I would leave. Through this article, I found more about Elle, including the 100 Day Project. For me, this project was a chance to ask myself - what is my “must”? What is my passion?
Of course, after three of these projects, I haven’t figured out my calling, but I’ve gotten closer. I’ve realized that finding your passion isn’t an activity that you just trip over and fall in love with. Just like anything else you love, it’s something that’s built with hard work. At the same time, I’ve started to doubt the fact that a specific calling exists at all - just that there are certain things that my mind is pre-disposed to work better with (like words and pictures) and that I can build a passion for these things by investing my time and heart and soul into them.
One of my biggest influences is a man named Cal Newport, who is a Computer Science professor constantly researching on productivity, happiness, and a variety of subjects. His research uncovered the fact that mindset can make an immense impact and that it’s not necessarily that one’s day-to-day work that makes them happy, but the fact that they believe switching careers and trying to “follow their passion” might make them happier. Essentially, the feeling of the grass being greener on the other side can undermine one’s ability to become passionate about what one is working on. Newport digs into this in this article, but goes into much greater detail in his work So Good They Can’t Ignore You.
To summarize, passion isn’t found, it’s built on work. It doesn’t have to be something romantic or beautiful. Rather, it could just be what you’re already doing - so long as you dedicate yourself and heart to it. Happiness is tied to how much you value the work you do, but that’s in your hands. If you haven’t already, I want you to work towards your passion - try a new activity and immerse yourself in it or take an activity you like and do it every day for a while. See what happens - you may find your passion.
Drops of the Week
where I *drop* recommendations of cool things this week
Illustrated Photo Series
Intervallo - an awesome series of illustrated photos detailing an Italian man’s journey across his homeland and showing his love for country.
Playlist
august 17 - my monthly playlist for August 2017! I had to actually put a year for this one since it marks a full year since I started making these last August. How exciting! I like this one a lot.
Longform Article
“I Want to Persuade You to Care About Other People” by Danielle Tcholakian - this piece resonated with me like very few have. As someone who wanted to be a journalist at one point, I think a lot about how people have lost respect for the practice and how impossible it is to change people’s beliefs.
Thanks so much for reading! If you have any comments/concerns or fan/hate mail for me, you can reply to this message or reach me through the socials below.
Love,
Nikhil