[mc32]

Yeah, I’d like to see median earnings numbers here.

Passion is great for hobbies. Passion should not be an ingredient or path to being a good employee or being a good citizen. Rigor yes, dedication, sure. Passion (I.e. suffering as it were), no, no that is that companies who want to milk you tell you, of managers who want to extract more from you and away from work life balance say. Sorry, but no.

[mdorazio]

Thank you. This is just like YouTuber economics. Sure the top creators in various categories do pretty well, but the vast majority of creators don’t even come close to making a living (and probably not even minimum wage factoring total content creation time). On top of this, sustaining a passion as a business is a fantastic way to burn out. Just look at creators like Every Frame a Painting. Keeping up with audience demands enough to maintain view counts / subscribers / patrons / whatever is hard.

[angarg12]

My wife was a freelancer teacher for a few years. Her earnings moved between 'being able to pay rent and little else' to 'not being able to pay the rent'. Not able to see a way forward and with the market getting more crowded, she decided to have a career change.

Now she has a 'boring office job', but at least she gets a predictable salary and career progression. Many times passion alone doesn't pay the bills.

[dpflan]

I think “passion” and the rise of startups the past decade are correlated, there is the cult of passion converted into “culture” as a lure. It appeals greatly to younger employees. The economic state and money looking for more money is fuel for the “passion culture lure”.

[ticmasta]

I believe (as do many others) that they've got the causation backwards; you don't search for work you're already passionate about, you grow passion by doing meaningful work that is deeply rewarding.

I read most of the post with the viewpoint that the author had a vested interest in a very specific interpretation of what's essential the story of the internet: the long tail. I see no evidence that the entire market for any of the examples has exploded in total value, which to me means we're just seeing a shift in delivery channels. Traditionally authors all made very little while a few best sellers took the majority of the money, same with musicians. If the new currency is audience, consumption or some other metric why does that indicate the fundamental distribution has changed?

[pojzon]

If possible I would like to steal that?:

"You don't look for a work you're already passionate about. You grow passion by doing meaningful work that is deeply rewarding."

This is a great advice for many management ppl.

[TeMPOraL]

> you don't search for work you're already passionate about, you grow passion by doing meaningful work that is deeply rewarding.

And how does the work become "meaningful and deeply rewarding"? For some, it may come just from repetition. Others manage to abstract their occupation away and source the meaning and rewards from families and lifestyle their work supports. But there are people for whom this doesn't work, and this is where I believe the "passion" mindset comes from. A lot of jobs are not only not meaningful, they're net harmful to society. And most people don't get to choose what they're working on anyway, economic considerations make the choice for them. So there's a tension.

[bjelkeman-again]

Fortunately, for people like us (i.e readers of HN) there is a possibility of meaningful and deeply rewarding work. I try to create those environments for myself and others to work on. That doesn’t give the opportunity to everyone, but you do what you can.

[mc32]

I think it’s not far off comparing them to the hong wei bings [紅衛兵]. They were enthusiastic but ultimately a means to an end, though the ends differ. Still, it was opportunistic and the opportunistic utilization part wasn’t disclosed.

[blue_devil]

In my mind "passion" has become synonymous with "marketing" - it matters only when you make it visible, very visible. Whatever happened to having a calling?

[eigenstuff]

I have a calling/passion, I'm a sculptor. And the marketing thing is what I seriously struggle with. I'm working on it and slowly pushing myself out of my comfort zone, but I disagree with passions only mattering if you make it visible. I'd love to be left the hell alone to be lost in my work forever, but I regrettably have to start making it visible if I want it to start paying for itself or at least break even. Art supplies aren't cheap. I want a laser cutter one day and that money isn't going to appear out of thin air. Making it visible is how to make it sustainable. I'm not in it for other people's approval and validation, the person I'm most concerned about impressing is myself.

This is kind of the harsh reality of being an artist though: how successful you are is less about the quality of work you do and more about how hard you can hustle. The person who makes unoriginal garbage art but is good at selling themselves is gonna beat the recluse who does high quality, innovation work but doesn't put themselves out there every single time.

[mikelyons]

Someone pursuing Life Purpose with passion is likely not an employee or a typical "citizen" however you might define it.

They may be creating something the world has never seen.

They may be devoted to waking up humanity.

The only person I know to be at this level of passion is Leo Gura.

[matz1]

>Passion should not be an ingredient or path to being a good employee or being a good citizen

Why ?

>Passion (I.e. suffering as it were),

If it something you passion about, its not suffering.

[munk-a]

According to the google

> Passion noun: 1. strong and barely controllable emotion.

Passion isn't enthusiasm or reliability when people demand passion they aren't demanding a state that can realistically be delivered for 30-40 years, they're insisting that people operate at a level that will quickly burn them out and force other healthy components of their work out.

An employee and employer should have a mutually beneficial relationship where each party adds value to the other. The employer is using labour to produce wealth and the employee is gaining a reliable wage for their labour. The relationship (generally) ends at 5 when the employees go home, demanding more from employees is counterproductive, off-putting and sometimes abusive[1].

1. As a former game developer I can tell you that overtime has effects well beyond that day, these stories are more extreme than mine but here ya go: https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/how-crunch-affects-game...

[matz1]

ok fine then enthusiasm or reliability comes from passion.

well it is off putting, feel abusive, surely you will quickly burn out if you don't have passion for it.