[peppery]

This article presumes the premise that "what you love"/"your passion" is the same as "what you can love"/the set of all "passions" you have not yet discovered. This is untrue.

Especially for young people, the amount of time that you have been alive is small compared to your lifetime. What you currently know to be interesting is correspondingly a small subset of the number of things you can find interesting over a lifetime, and an even smaller subset of the things which you could find fulfilling to work on with many lifetimes. (For those who have lived longer, your life experience makes it even more likely you can identify fulfilling connections/facets of the universe to study.)

The challenge is to find the intersection between what you can be riveted to work on, and what society values (in whatever its flawed wisdom) or can be invited to value. This is not trivial, but the statistics of the universe are on your side.

What sort of society would we be if e.g. Nikola Tesla/Jame Clark Maxwell/Mozart/etc. had followed this advice?

To aspire is human, powerful, fulfilling. To eat is practical. It is possible to do both. Society needs people who persist in that pursuit.

[sametmax]

Also, not only will you change, but if you invest in something, your taste toward it will change as well. It's a nice trick for people looking for a passion: invest yourself in anything that has depth and you don't have, and you may end up getting passionate about it.

We often have it backward, trying to "feel like it" to do things. But it's one of the tricky things in life: you may very well have to do things so you can feel like it.

[Regardsyjc]

I started learning how to program so I could automate some of my business processes. In the beginning I hated every minute of it. I would avoid working on the project because it sucked but as soon as I made up my mind that I would do this or die trying, it took being in the right mood off the table. It now became, OK what's the next problem I need to solve to complete my project. I ended up falling in love with the process and now I'm consistently "programming" (more debugging?) for hours until I find a solution. I used to hate that there was so much to learn, now it excites me that there are so many new ways to improve.

[hailk]

Also, it's very difficult to like something when you suck at it. I've learned this playing video games and sports. First there's the grind to improve. Once you start getting better and understand the mechanics better, you automatically start having fun. And most often, when people don't like anything, it's often the grind associated they don't like not the thing itself. Take math and literature for example.

[EADGBE]

There are plenty of stories of artists doing both, it's just really f-ing hard. I'd argue especially for artists, but this is probably true of any passion. [1]

Philip Glass for instance: "While working, I suddenly heard a noise and looked up to find Robert Hughes, the art critic of Time magazine, staring at me in disbelief. 'But you're Philip Glass! What are you doing here?' It was obvious that I was installing his dishwasher and I told him I would soon be finished. 'But you are an artist,' he protested. I explained that I was an artist but that I was sometimes a plumber as well and that he should go away and let me finish."

> Society needs people who persist in that pursuit.

The persistence is key.

Am I a guitar player or a software developer? We all know I'm a hack developer - in contrast - I feel like I really know what I'm doing with music. Most would assume that because music doesn't pay my bills then I'm not a musician. Compare to a hobbyist/non-paid developer who code-binges at night.

[1] http://mentalfloss.com/article/52293/11-celebrated-artists-w... (I had a link to a better article on this but lost it, apologies)

[ScottBurson]

Maybe you meant this article, which is linked to from that one? https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/interviews/...

[EADGBE]

Thanks for the link! It’s similar but the one I was referring to was just a blip about Glass, and more about artists (of all kinds). Even writers I believe. Gets the point across though.

[lancebeet]

> This article presumes the premise that "what you love"/"your passion" is the same as "what you can love"/the set of all "passions" you have not yet discovered. This is untrue.

A while ago, an article was posted here on HN on paper jam engineering[1] which I believe really demonstrates this point. Few people aspire to become paper jam engineers (or even know of their existence), but it seems to be a very rewarding field.

[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/12/why-paper-jams...

[freedomben]

> To eat is practical. It is possible to do both.

Yes. Even when it comes to development, I find that often the project you are most passionate about is not one that you can be paid for, at least long term. So even if you love software, you may still need to pursue the fun parts in your spare time.

[waingake]

Thanks I like this.

> the statistics of the universe are on your side.

What do you mean by this ?

[sametmax]

It means the universe it vast, diverse, and ever changing. You are changing too, and your life is a function of time and space, so you will have a lot of opportunities for happiness. That's doesn't remove the hard things or the sadness, but it's here and it's a good skill to practice to be able to leverage it.