Follow your passion? Cool, let me just torch my stability first
If you’ve ever stood in a Barnes & Noble self-help aisle long enough to feel your soul slowly exit through your tear ducts, you’ve probably encountered the sacred scroll of modern delusion: Follow Your Passion. It’s printed on mugs, stitched into throw pillows, and shouted from TEDx stages by people who definitely inherited a condo. It sounds lovely. Noble. Like a call to arms from your inner child—who also thought becoming a dinosaur was a valid career path.
Let’s be honest. “Follow your passion” is the adult version of “build a treehouse and live in it.” There’s something disturbingly seductive about it. It whispers to you at 2:37 a.m. when you’re three hard seltzers deep and watching YouTube videos about hand-whittled canoe paddles. “You don’t need a salary,” it says. “You need to sculpt cheese full-time.”
My Passion Is Napping and Light Snacking, Can I Monetize That?
The people who tell you to follow your passion always leave out key details—like the fact that their spouse works in biotech and covers the mortgage while they “explore artisanal mushroom farming.” Passion is lovely, but it’s not a retirement plan. You can’t Venmo your landlord a sonnet or pay your utility bill in dream journal entries.
Passion, for most of us, is what we do on weekends when the Wi-Fi is out and no one needs help moving. It’s something that brings joy—not necessarily dental insurance. But sure, let’s all quit our jobs and go become lighthouse historians. Let’s all open kombucha-themed escape rooms. Let’s follow that passion straight into a tent behind a Whole Foods.
The Instagram Version of Passion vs. Reality
Social media has made passion look like it always happens on a beach at golden hour. Everyone’s out there baking rustic breads or teaching yoga to alpacas while you’re trying to convince Karen from Accounting that “Reply All” is not a form of dominance. Passion, on Instagram, is curated. In real life, it’s sticky, complicated, and occasionally smells like spoiled hummus.
No one posts, “Today I followed my passion and made $11 after expenses,” or “Just got rejected by my 73rd literary agent, but I’m doing what I love, which is being ignored professionally.” Instead, they post aerial shots of Tuscany and claim their art is funded by good vibes and oat milk.
Better Advice: Stuff You Might Actually Survive Doing
Let’s retire “Follow Your Passion” and replace it with advice that doesn’t sound like it came from a sentient dreamcatcher. Try these:
- “Follow your competence and hobby your passion.”
- “Love what you do at least enough not to scream into a drawer every morning.”
- “Do something tolerable that leaves you time to collect stamps or practice flamenco.”
- “Be passionate about weekends.”
- “Turn your passion into a side hustle and your side hustle into a very expensive hobby.”
Final Thought: Passion is a Spice, Not a Soup
A fulfilling life isn’t built by mainlining your dream like it’s a meth smoothie. It’s built by mixing a little of what you love into a foundation of things that keep the lights on and your sanity mostly intact. Passion is the saffron in the paella, not the entire dang dish. So the next time someone tells you to follow your passion, feel free to respond with your own motto:
“I followed my passion. It led me to credit card debt and a couch made of milk crates.”
Let passion ride shotgun. But for the love of rent, let practicality drive.
