3 Magic Tricks to Dig Your Passion
#1 Time -Travel
It’s a great time to be alive, isn’t it? People are leaving traditional jobs to make a living out of their passion. Corporate employees morphing into fitness trainers, programmers turning to bloggers — our feeds are suffused with similar stories.
Ya that’s great but what if I don’t have a passion let alone earn a living from it.
No Problemo Mi Amigo!
Today I (your well-wisher) will help you discover your passions/hobbies — whatever you want to name it.
Ready to learn something new about yourself?
#1: Time to Time-Travel
We don’t have an Arc Reactor like the Avengers yet we can be on Asgard right now playing drums with Thor’s hammer or be at a board meeting with Musk and Stark.
How? You ask.
We all own a formidable device known as the brain. By the power of imagination one could be anywhere doing anything (Currently I am helping Superman learn to fly upside down).
You can play around with yours to see if it’s fully functional.
Assuming you are good to go, let’s apparate to our childhood.
But why?
Because that’s where the truth lies, engulfed in our youth.
As kids, we are innocent, curious, and audacious. Inquisitiveness compels us to try diverse activities.
Being young plays in favor of us in a couple of ways.
Firstly the society doesn’t pummel us into the traditional molds just yet because it wants us to come of age.
And secondly, the world willingly ignores our inventive pursuits under the shield of immaturity. Our Imaginations are licensed to run wild with no heed to rationality.
Rotating the steering wheel of a stationary car, pretending to drive at high speed, or flying an ordinary TV remote as a supersonic jet.
I recall as a child I loved sports. Waking up at 6:00 am for school felt like work while waking up at 5:00 am for playing cricket was reasonable.
Even now playing outdoor sports or exercising is something I derive immense pleasure from.
As we grow older we lose that novelty. Vacuousness replaces vigor.
We learn to play-it-safe, pursuing ventures more as a necessity instead of enjoyment.
Go back to your childhood to discover the activities you truly loved to do.
#2: Phone-a-Friend
Having true friends is a benediction.
They come in handy while roasting your ex or help you earn easy money through referral programs.
But they hold a supernatural prowess that is hardly called upon.
They can unearth our passion. Yes, your pesky buddy who mocks you for small misfortunes holds the power to flip your life.
While speaking about our strengths and skills we usually hold a myopic vision, undermining ourselves. It’s not intentional, we can’t potentially comprehend them because we grew up like that. For us it’s normal.
Hanging out with us day in day out, friends observe innocuous traits which we fail to notice. They know these subtle strengths of our personality.
In my case people often compliment me for my discipline, they love my book and movie recommendations, and I am the unofficial counselor for a few I guess.
All these ingredients helped me put together this newsletter.
Time to give your pal a phone call.
Take feedbacks, ask which of your attributes they admire.
You might be good at organizing trips and outings or you can easily strike conversations with strangers.
Based on the inputs you could give event management or vlogging a try.
#3: What Is Your Leisure?
For the few unfortunate readers for whom time-travel failed or who don’t have close friends, I got one more trick up my sleeve.
During the 2012 United States presidential election, the traffic at the New York Times surged as expected. However, the majority of the traffic was looking for a specific blog that had Nate Silver’s predictions. He correctly predicted the winner of all 50 states.
Silver showed proficiency in math from a young age and was also fond of baseball. In his free time, he loved crunching numbers instead of KitKats.
Eventually, his diligence let him design PECOTA- a statistical system that projects the future performance of hitters and pitchers. It was used by fans and professionals to predict the game outcomes.
Silver replicated similar knowledge to develop his election predictor model. Then he went on to apply it to different fields(basketball, poker).
What do you do in your free time?
Do you spend countless hours on YouTube watching aliens and other conspiracy theories or are you stay glued to Reddit devouring stock market hacks?
These habits highlight the things you enjoy.
Reflecting on your leisure time can give you a good idea about your interests.
Moreover, since you already practice them in your free time you wouldn’t have to put in the extra effort and it wouldn’t feel like a chore.
I am the perfect example of this. I often spend my spare time reading random productivity hacks, books, and other quirky stuff.
Whenever I land on something intriguing it gets included in the newsletter. You wouldn’t believe how much of my content comes from this mundane practice.
Noticing how you spend your downtime might leave you with a hobby to build around.
Final Words
I guess that’s all I have got to say.
- Go back to your childhood
- Speak to a friend
- Track your free time
And luckily, you will end up with something to work upon.
In addition, I believe one should pursue a passion primarily for the love of the craft, and not only for monetization. If you make money that’s great but even you don’t that’s great too!
Do things because you enjoy them.
They will feed your soul.
Subscribe to my (free) biweekly newsletter helping you rekindle your love for life — Soul Letter
