Passion

I see this word used a lot by people in my industry. According to the many that talk about it and use it, you should be passionate about your work, you should love it, you should want to do it non stop. I have a problem with this. I’ve written about it before, paid work doesn’t have to be your passion. And there are a lot of reasons why this may be the case. Maybe the thing you are passionate about isn’t something that will pay you enough to live on. Maybe the thing you are passionate about is more fun when it’s done unpaid in your free time than when it becomes your paid work. Maybe you like your paid work and you need it to support your family and you are grateful for it, but you don’t feel passion for it. And that’s perfectly fine. Your true work in life may never be your paid work, but that doesn’t mean your paid work is less than or not good enough, it means that you are doing what’s best for you. And passion isn’t the right word to describe any of this, instead we should find other words to talk about our work, whether it’s paid or not, because passion is hard to sustain.