Follow Your Passion
So many people promote following your passion, but I’m not sure that’s really a viable life approach. You could be really passionate about soccer, but there are so many people out there who play soccer and those who make a living doing that are a very small part of the total population of the world. The possibility of a person being able to support themselves through soccer is small. Even if you branch out.
Just because you cannot play doesn’t mean you cannot be a referee, an owner, be a coach, merchandiser, work the stands selling food and drinks, or even create video games based on the sport. Still, how many people can do that? I’m not sure, but probably not everybody that is passionate about soccer. So what do you do?
Find something you are good at. Something people need, and something you can become passionate about. You may not be passionate about it now, but can you be? What child growing up says “OH! I want to be an accountant!”? My guess is that not many do. Most want to be firemen, astronauts or policemen. Nobody really wants to be in an office all day. Yet many of us end up there. And we enjoy it.
For the most part.
We learn to become passionate about the subject. And I think we learn to enjoy the social interactions with the people we work with.
The more challenging part of our jobs then becomes learning how to navigate the social atmosphere in our offices and finding ways to make our work interesting as we increase in our skill level. We end up finding our limits, growing to them and looking for more challenges to help us push past those limits. We look for more things that will help us find more fulfillment and satisfaction in what we do in our occupation. If you lack enthusiasm for your job, then it may be time to expand to other areas. Volunteer for additional work or look for ways to help others outside of your regular job description. You may find it both rewarding and you will increase your value to the company as well.
And maybe it will become a new passion.
The image, titled “Paradise”, was taken by “Hartwig HKD”. You can find it on flickr.
Comments