Our stylish, monetized lives

too much focus on “realizing our potential” seems to be in a quest to “monetize” every simple hobby, every action or social connection we have nowadays. so you do trekking- why not have a blog with thousands of followers? these days you can also earn money through that. of course there is no harm and much value in sharing your passion online or connecting to like-minded people but when I hear about conferences where people completely forget about the reason why they liked the pursuit and recommend SEO tricks, I am disappointed.

in a way, it is also intrinsically linked with our idea of success. it has to bring fame, it has to bring financial prosperity, it has to make a very popular impact (whether it lasts or not) based on such a perspective. just running and enjoying is not enough, measure how much, share it with the others and update your personality with this additional feature. Reading books? try to write one, review books and change your personal image to match the ideal avid reader profile.

You do not have to. When your passion is converted to a resource, it becomes something else. not necessarily bad- but something else than simple pleasure of your actions. Relax. Just enjoy.