I think it's sometimes easy for (passionate) programmers to forget that they happen to be obsessed with something that is also a highly marketable skill. From our little group of elementary school computer enthusiasts only one other guy and I were into programming. It's only the two of us who still make a living working with our passion, the "traders" and "swappers" did not turn out to have hobbies that extended into multi-decade long careers.
Beyond the retro-definition of the word "passion", I agree that "doing what you love" is a pretty naive view of the work world. When I get asked "What would you want to do all day," I answer "drink, play video games, and look at naked girls." Nobody wants to pay me to do that, trust me. I do, on the other hand enjoy programming. I also get sick of it.
tl;dr: A career is ruining an activity you enjoy in the name of money.
Yep, it's easier to be "passionate" about something when you don't do it 40+ hours per week.
Also, I enjoy programming, I have a programming job. I wish my job had more actual programming in it. When it's a job you can't just get to do the fun parts.
A lot of great points raised, but there's still something to be said for working in a field you enjoy. Forget the semantic dance around the meaning of the word "passion" for a minute.
Let's take the author's hypothetical example of the person who's really into composting. Maybe this person isn't "passionate" about composting to the point of stark-raving obsession, but pretty much anywhere just shy of that mark is feasible. This person is probably better served working in the gardening industry -- maybe as a landscape designer, or an executive at a home & garden brand, or starting up a community or zine or product line around gardening, etc. -- than in, say, the auto industry.
What determines whether or not this person should actually pursue his "passion" for composting in the professional arena? The degree of love for the subject, certainly, but also risk tolerance and perseverence. Those are the two critical, but oft-overlooked factors that the "follow your passion!" self-help gurus gloss over.
The hard truth is that not everyone's cut out for following his or her passion. Some have the drive, the obsession, the work ethic, the aptitude, and the right mix of circumstances to make it happen. Some don't. The real trick isn't testing how strong your passion is; it's testing how strong you are.
There's a huge difference about being "into" composting... and enjoying talking about composting, teaching composting, selling people on composting equipment/techniques, writing about composting, etc.
This is an important distinction. If you're "into" composting but those other things above disinterest you, it's easy to try to get yourself stuck in a situation that you hate. Where you eventually even stop enjoying composting.
I don't deny that it's an extremely important distinction, and perhaps I should have gone to greater lengths to clarify as much.
At the same time, I feel that the article set up a bit of a false dichotomy by focusing too heavily on the extreme end of the "passion" spectrum. It's not a black-and-white choice between "mildly interested in" and "slaveringly obsessed with." There is a pretty broad spectrum in between those points. "Into" was probably a casually bad word choice on my part, but again, I'd really suggest that we stay away from a semantics debate here.
To re-clarify: I agree, more or less, with a great deal of the article and its broad analysis. At times, however, the author gets too bogged down in a dissection of the semantics and usage of the word "passion," leading him astray.
For what it's worth, I really enjoyed your linked piece. Particularly your point here: "You can love something and not know the slightest thing about it."
Exploring that all-important point a bit further, we can arrive at this scary conclusion: You can love a given topic, but not necessarily in the way other people love it. I'd venture to say that plenty of failed passion-followers have dashed their ships aground on those rocks. Loving something, and serving the customer, are two very different and often conflicting things.
Worth noting: the word "amateur" means "lover of" or "love doing".
Someone who is "professional", on the other hand, is a person who gets consistently the same result from doing the same work. This is generally what people pay for.
Now would you rather want to be someone who loves what they're doing or someone who's basically a working machine?
Going from passionate amateur to passionate professional is extremely difficult.
I think there's a difference between making a living and making a life. I bet, if I was passionate enough about eating pancakes, I could find some way to make a living. That living might be substandard and only provide cheap room and board plus bad nutritional intake from consuming nothing but pancakes. However, I bet I could do it. I could not make a life, e.g. one where I could provide for my family, buy a new car, travel to France, learn to scuba dive, etc, etc.
If you're truly passionate enough about something, you can make a living at it. It just may not be a very good one.
I think in this day and age, that's just splitting hairs though. Most people would love to have something that makes them spring out of bed in the morning and keeps them so engaged that they can't sleep at night. Well, they'd love it until they hate it. And of course there are some people who are wired in such a way that they could never feel that way about anything and to them, the grass is always greener on the other side. That's ok. In the immortal words of Ted Knight, "The world needs ditch diggers too."
(Author of the post being discussed here - hi there, how you ya doin').
My point in writing that post was to give the reality-based side of the story because, as I mentioned, there is a frickton of people out there who would have you believe that you can make a whole lot of dough doing, almost literally, anything if you really love it enough. Naturally, this is true of some people (like programmers and writers), but the problem I have is that the message being sent by these people is that absolutely anybody can have this particular part of your life unearthed if you just pay them $297 for a couple of hours on the phone. They'll tell you to start a blog about [thing], then write and sell an ebook about [thing] or offer coaching on [thing] - rinse and repeat until you have time to pick out your yacht. It's horseshit.