[evanlivingston]

I think it's curious that we take the idea of a guiding passion for each human as a given, that we believe it's reasonable or admirable to be guided by a singular, unified idea which is somewhat unique to each individual.

At some point in recent history in the West we started using the narrative of passion in relation to success and happiness. We've developed an ideal that people ought to be passionate. Some people, many people, are simply not passionate people, but I don't feel as though that has any relevance on their "importance" in society. Why has the level of passion a person feels become part of the metric by which we value people? Personally, I feel as though it's because we call "passion" often translates into financial success, in which case "passionate" just serves as a euphemism for wealthy.

Furthermore, it's easy for us to imagine that we are passionate about something, only to realize a year later we were tricking ourselves all along. It seems in tech we often misconstrue passion for something a little more akin to an addiction to work because we want to be passionate people, but many of us simply arn't.

[delluminatus]

Reminds me of a book, So Good They Can't Ignore You, which goes to great lengths to argue against the idea that "following your passion" is a good way to be successful. Very much recommended.

[tekalon]

Just finished it last week. I also highly recommend it.