Follow Your Passion?

Now, more than ever, people are lost and just want direction

This is probably the one of the most important debates for our generation. In order to be successful in life, should we follow our passion, or develop necessary life or work skills? Should we do what we love, or simply try to be good at something?

I don’t believe there is a good answer to this question. Why? Because the answer is irrelevant. Success has neither wholly to do with passion nor skills, but one particular thing: purpose.

The most important key to success is having something significant to show or say. And if you don’t have something significant to show or say, then, to be successful, you should be working towards building that.

By significant, I mean this: the feeling you have that if an idea isn’t shown or built, that the world will be worse off. If you don’t have this feeling towards something, then it is not significant.

Significant means “needed.” Many entrepreneurs, artists, and content creators today create simply because they can. Because they are good and want the world to see that. This ends up having the opposite effect they want: they have to work extra hard for only minimal success, if that.

True success is not about you. It’s not about how you can become successful. Success is always about the world – how the world can accept something new and be better from it.

Now can you enjoy the success? Of course. And you should. You did it, you made it happen. But the success is not for you. It’s for a higher purpose. Your role is simply seeing that purpose, seeing what’s necessary, and having the persistence and boldness to make it happen.

But doesn’t that require passion about what you’re doing? Although passion may be where you find purpose, it is not a requirement for following it. Think of the great political and spiritual leaders of the past – Moses, Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., and even Jesus.

These are people who undoubtedly fought to achieve a singular purpose – and yet none of these men did it because they “wanted” to. Even Jesus himself begged God to save him from the pain of being tortured and dying on the cross.

The role of the creator today is not to create because he can, but because he can’t not. And that’s ultimately what distinguishes someone with success and not success. You have to create a purpose for people, give them something to believe in and follow. Now, more than ever, people are lost and just want direction. They don’t know what to believe in, and are looking for someone to help guide them.

You have the power to do that. To introduce a purpose into the world. Maybe, then, someday we’ll stop giving the advice of “follow your passion,” and start telling others, “follow your purpose.”