Follow your Passion?
What does that even mean?
There are a plethora of platitudes circulating in our society in support of the idea of Following Your Passion. Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life. Actualize your aspirations. Follow your dreams.
The first challenge to Following Your Passion is that very few people HAVE a passion.
I am fortunate to have daily interactions with a diverse socioeconomic cross-section of people in the Washington D.C. region. From the middle aged woman that makes a living dog sitting in her modest 1952 rambler inside the beltway, to the uber-wealthy husbands-and-wife cosmetic surgeons living in a 12,000 square foot home in Great Falls, Virginia, and everything in between. As I work in their homes for several hours, we often build a quite intimate rapport. Being a topic of interest to me, I often turn the conversation toward what motivates them.
“What are you passionate about?” I ask.
The responses vary little.
Pause. Loooong pause. “Um, well, that’s a good question. I’ve been thinking about that very thing. My family?”
Follow your passion. First, you have to have one.
It worked well for me as a youth. I could be anything I wanted to be. Do anything. I had plenty of passions s a child. At 6 I wanted to be a carpenter (we were having an addition put on our house). At 9 I wanted to be a stay-at-home dad (mine was not around). At 12 it was a professional soccer player. At 16 I wanted to be Scarface. At 20, I had a beautiful 20 year plan that involved professional athletics, author, chef, artist and ultimately a middle aged husband to a 27 year-old and father of 4. Then, at 21, I met my wife. Time to earn a living. A living that was not just good enough for me, but good enough for me, a wife and some children. And my parents. And my friends on Facebook.
All of those experiences I gathered in pursuit of my varied passions were, and are, still with me. All of them make me who I am.
For well over a decade I made a living in Retail. Working for one of the best Retailers in the world, I made a fine living and learned an amazing amount about leadership, management, communication and love. I also came to understand how all-consuming a career is. Even with 5 weeks of vacation a year, there isn’t enough time in a day, a week, a month to have a full life. To love, explore, build, create, learn, make mistakes, date, play, dream. There wasn’t enough time to follow passion. There wasn’t enough energy to winnow out grains of passion that might have a chance to sprout.
Well, to be fair, there was enough. Enough time. Enough energy. But I quashed it, knowing that any sprouts would place the balance of my status quo in jeopardy. As fine as I may have been with an altered status, there were more people to consider.
2 years ago I made time to dream. 11 months ago I took action. 8 months ago I made a leap. Today, I am still uncertain what things will look like in a year. I am happy, though.
I am not Following My Passion. I am pursuing a life that has a different balance than the one I led for so many years. With this new balance, I prioritize the nurturing of the seeds of passion. Or are they simply seeds of interest? Perhaps one or two of them will grow vigorously and bear fruit.
Don’t follow your passion. Take it with you wherever you go.
Much love to Mike Rowe, who inspires me with his works. I have most recently loved his chat with Guy Raz on the TED Radio Hour. Check out the show with Mike Rowe here.
YAY Work!