There’s been a major discussion happening this past week, all centering around a post on the Quest For Balance blog about passion, and especially about making our passion make a profit.
Lisis, the author, says:
The Passion Paradox is this: the pursuit of our passion, for profit, is making us miserable.
She herself has walked away from corporate security to follow a passion and while she says it’s been worthwhile, she doesn’t recommend it to others due to the stress she and her family have faced.
She also highlights the huge industry that exists on the internet right now that’s all about selling hundreds of systems, tools, products, classes, books, audios, etc all focused on giving us the next perfect way to stop doing what we hate and start doing what we love…our dreams and passions.
And, while I agree with Gary Vaynerchuck that there’s never been a better time to make our passion a viable way to earn a living, for me the profit is entirely beside the point.
I believe that our passions are there for a purpose and that following them transforms everything….our selves, our lives, our world, whether we ever make a cent doing them or not.
It seems like one of the myths out there is that, as soon as we get clear on what our passion really is, we’re supposed to immediately find a way to make a living doing it. And I think that puts us right into the Passion Paradox that Lisis is referring to.
It can be HUGELY stressful to put this kind of pressure on the doing of our passions, especially when they’re in the early stage.
I truly believe that this kind of pressure is exactly why we avoid our passions sometimes! We love it SO much, but then we heap on some stress about doing it well (because we care) and about others liking it (because, hey, we’re human) and then, as if that wasn’t enough, we have to figure out a way to live on it!
No wonder there are writers who don’t write, and painters who don’t paint, and dancers who don’t dance, etc, etc, etc. Who needs that kind of pressure?
But I also believe that when we take the pressure off and allow ourselves some time to play in our passion, and enjoy it for it’s own sake, and maybe even get pretty good at it, there can sometimes be a way to have it support us financially.
So how would you know if you were called to pursue your passion as your living?
Answer: You’d have the passion to do so!
Because, not every passion compels us to make a living at it. Some passions are just great at a once a month rally, or in the basement on Saturday afternoons, or every day after school.
However, for the ones that DO compel us to go all the way with them as a life, living and career, following our passion will call us to transform absolutely everything about ourselves and our lives that is standing in it’s way.
And this is the greatest gift of our passions. They are meant to call us down a road of transformation that ends with us becoming exactly who we always wanted to be.
That’s why there’s a great alchemical paradox between our passions and our weaknesses.
It’s through following our passions that our every weakness is transformed.
So that’s why the shy person’s passion calls them to master speaking or sales. And the person who’s never stuck with anything takes up a passion that requires them to practice every day.
Think about this for a moment, if your passions were ahead of you in one direction, and your obstacles were off in another direction, which one would you go toward? Probably the passions.
But it doesn’t work that way. When we go off in the direction of our passion, every obstacle we will need to overcome in ourselves will be on that path.
And it’s the LOVE that our passion inspires in us that makes us willing to keep walking and keep transforming whatever the obstacles are, including the obstacles to making money.
And no matter how long we spend on that path with our passion, we will find ourselves changed and transformed in remarkable ways. We’ll find ourselves becoming more and more of who our passion calls us to be.
And I believe this transformation is overwhelmingly worth it, whether we ever make a penny doing it or not.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Are you pursuing any of your passions as a career? Leave your comments below.
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