You Have to Stop Following Your Passion Right Now
Forget the lies you have been told.
UPDATE: The whole point of this article is that the advice “follow your passion” is often misused and misunderstood. The idea of “doing what you like” is good, of course, but many people get the illusion that each person has this innate passion and they just got to find it.
Below is the longer version of the above paragraph.
The idea of finding your passion and making it your life’s work has been romanticized for decades — in Hollywood movies, in modern books and by your aunt.
You know, the little 5-year old who finds a pen and starts drawing meticulous paintings with no effort? Ugh!
I do not disagree that you should love what you do.
But this idea has been sold and represented so unrealistically that its implications did more harm than good.
It took me a few years to realize that what most people mean when they use the word “passion” does not align with the reality.
1. Basketball
Run to the hoop,cross-cut to the three-point line, catch the ball and BANG!
Throwing orange balls into a big hole at 10 feet height has been my first real touch with the so-called passion.
At first, it was just like any other sport such as football or volleyball. But then I started practicing it. After months and months of training, I have slowly started liking basketball.
Soon, I was one of the top players of my age in Armenia and, the more I practiced basketball, the more I fell in love with it.
2. Physics
And then came my intellectual endeavors.
I started attending a Physical-Mathematical specialized school in Armenia. I was attending a physics club two days a week.
Did I like it at first? Nope.
If anything, I had to force myself to study physics at home so I could improve my skills.
But…
After months and even years of extensive practice, physics has become my new passion and I was doing it almost every day. Voila!
3. Writing
At the last periods of my high school, I started writing.
At first, when I was writing college essays, writing only meant dumb words on a piece of paper (or a Google doc). But soon enough, once I got the glimpse of it, writing has become like making melody.
Notice The Pattern:
I have had my other share of skills and they shared one thing in common:
I was absolute crap at all my passions in the beginnings.
Basketball, physics or writing would never have become passions for me if I stopped practicing them. I repeat, NEVER!
It took me months and months of extensive, focused hard-work to get it “clicked” in my head.
Basketball was just an orange ball for throwing into a big hole before I sweated to learn how to play this sport.
Writing was just words and physics was just formulas before I practiced my art every single day.
Passions Are Built — Not Found
You have to put work to see the beauty.
You can’t appreciate the little things that make a painting or the notes that make a melody like a master does.
When you do not put the work, when you do not learn the subtleties and do not dig deep to learn the underlying truths, you just see the surface of things.
Let Go Off The Excuses
Do you know what a teenager excessively romanticized with the idea of inborn passion becomes?
A quitter.
We are strangers to every new skill we practice… And love does not happen to strangers.
Every new skill is dealt with challenges. When you activate your placebo effect — that you have one passion and you just gotta find it — you automatically engage in negative self-talk when you face difficulties.
Instead of continuing to develop the skill and practice on it, many people give up.
“Wait, what? I am not throwing darts in the center on my first day of practice? Man, darts is not my passion. I gotta find mine!”
Embrace Strengths
This does not mean people do not have strengths and they should pursue anything that comes to their mind.
Neither does it mean we do not have the skills and activities which are more enjoyable to us.
But its extent is highly overrated and most people fail to the trap of“follow-your-passion”.
Instead, build your passion!
Thanks for reading. In case, we haven’t met before, I am Ara Mambreyan :)
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