Passion is Overrated

There are a lucky few in life who know exactly what they want to do and have done for as long as they can remember. 

My Dad tells stories of being at school and building a contraption that a classmate would sit on while his friends pulled it back on an elastic band, releasing it and firing them forwards to ‘fly’. 

Leaving school, he joined the RAF as soon as he could. Retiring from commercial flying, the first thing he did was head over to the local airfield to sign up with a local outfit. Even now, if he isn’t in a plane, he’s building or flying model airplanes.

Most of us aren’t so lucky. 

Many of us got through our childhood by choosing subjects we were naturally good at, filtering our choices down based on exam results. This might have gotten us through school and perhaps on to higher education. But doing what we’re good at, what we find easy, doesn’t help us identify what we’re passionate about.

A couple of years after I got my first guitar and had grown my hair to an acceptable length for an aspiring rock star, I read an article that completely changed my world view. 

The editor wrote that when we look up on stage, we only ever see a snapshot in a much longer journey. We don’t see the decades spent practicing, the sleepless nights, the endless hours in a clapped out van driving from venue to venue, playing to a crowd of 3 people for zero pay.

If we subscribe to the notion that we find our passion, any one of these moments of adversity could derail us. Surely, we might think, if being a rock star is our passion, shouldn’t every moment fill us with joy? 

I can’t imagine there’s anyone anywhere in the world who enjoys working their socks off for little to no reward. 

But it’s when things are tough that we find out what we’re made of and as we overcome barriers, that we find joy and pride in what we’re creating. To me, these are the brush strokes of the big-picture feeling we call passion.

For those of us who weren’t born with an unwavering direction, passion isn’t found by searching for it, it’s crafted and nurtured by working for it, hour after hour, day after day, year after year. 

So get out there and get building. I can’t wait to see what you make.