Remember dorsum when you were a child? You lot would only practice things. You never thought to yourself, "What are the relative claim of learning baseball versus football?" You just ran effectually the playground and played baseball and football. You built sand castles and played tag and asked airheaded questions and looked for bugs and dug upwards grass and pretended you lot were a sewer monster.

Nobody told you to do information technology, you only did it. You were led merely by your curiosity1 and excitement.2

And the beautiful thing was, if yous hated baseball, you lot merely stopped playing it. There was no guilt involved. There was no arguing or debate. Y'all either liked it or you didn't.

And if you loved looking for bugs, you merely did that. There was no second-level assay of, "Well, is looking for bugs really what I should be doing with my time every bit a child? Nobody else wants to look for bugs, does that hateful in that location's something wrong with me? How will looking for bugs affect my future prospects?"three

There was no bullshit. If you liked something, you just did it.

"How Do I Find My Passion?"

Today, I received approximately the eleven,504th email this year from a person telling me that they don't know what to do with their life. And like all of the others, this person asked me if I had whatsoever ideas of what they could do, where they could start, where to "find their passion."

And of course, I didn't respond. Why? Because I take no fucking inkling. If you don't have any idea what to do with yourself, what makes you lot think some jackass with a website would? I'm a writer, not a fortune teller.4

But more chiefly, what I want to say to these people is this: that'due south the whole betoken—"non knowing" is the whole fucking point. Life is all about non knowing, and then doing something anyhow. All of life is like this. All of it. And information technology'southward non going to get any easier just because y'all found out yous dearest your job cleaning septic tanks, or you scored a dream gig writing indie movies.

The common complaint amongst a lot of these people is that they need to "find their passion."

I call bullshit. You already constitute your passion, you're just ignoring information technology. Seriously, you're awake 16 hours a day, what the fuck do you do with your time? Yous're doing something, obviously. You're talking well-nigh something. There's some topic or activity or idea that dominates a significant amount of your free fourth dimension, your conversations, your spider web browsing, and it dominates them without yous consciously pursuing it or looking for it.

It'due south right there in front of y'all, you're just avoiding information technology. For whatsoever reason, you're avoiding it. You lot're telling yourself, "Oh well, yeah, I love comic books but that doesn't count. You lot can't brand money with comic books."

Fuck you, have yous even tried?5

The problem is not a lack of passion for something. The problem is productivity. The problem is perception. The trouble is acceptance.

The trouble is the, "Oh, well that's but not a realistic option," or "Mom and Dad would kill me if I tried to exercise that, they say I should be a doctor," or "That's crazy, you tin can't buy a BMW with the money you make doing that."

The problem isn't passion. It'south never passion.

Information technology'due south priorities.

And even then, who says y'all need to make coin doing what yous dear? Since when does everyone experience entitled to honey every fucking second of their task? Really, what is so incorrect with working an okay, normal task with some cool people you like and and then pursuing your passion in your gratis time on the side? Has the earth turned upside-down or is this suddenly a novel idea to people?

Look, here's another slap in the face for y'all: every job sucks sometimes. At that place's no such thing as some passionate activity that you will never get tired of, never get stressed over, never complain near. It doesn't exist. I am living my dream task (which happened past accident, by the mode. I never in a million years planned on this happening; like a kid on a playground I only went and tried information technology), and I still hate about thirty% of it. Some days more than.6

Again, that'south merely life.

Man sitting down with his passion, the saxophone

The issue here is, once more, expectations. If you think you're supposed to be working 70-hour piece of work weeks and sleeping in your office like Steve Jobs and loving every 2nd of it, yous've been watching too many shitty movies. If you think you're supposed to wake up every single 24-hour interval dancing out of your pajamas because y'all go to go to work, and then y'all've been drinking the Kool-Help. Life doesn't work similar that. It'southward only unrealistic. There's a thing most of united states of america need called balance.

Your Passion Is Correct in Front of You

I have a friend who, for the last 3 years, has been trying to build an online business selling whatever. It hasn't been working. And by not working, I mean he's non fifty-fifty launching anything. Despite years of "piece of work" and proverb he's going to do this or that, nothing actually ever gets done.

What does get done is when ane of his former co-workers comes to him with a pattern task to create a logo or design some promotional textile for an event. Holy shit, he's all over that like flies on fresh cow shit.

And he does a neat job! He stays upwardly to iv:00 AM losing himself working on it and loving every 2d of it.

But and then two days later it'south dorsum to, "Man, I just don't know what I'one thousand supposed to do."

I see so many people similar him. He doesn't need to observe his passion. His passion already establish him. He's just ignoring it. He just refuses to believe information technology's viable. He is merely afraid of giving it an honest-to-god try.

It's similar a nerdy kid walking onto a playground and saying, "Well, bugs are actually cool, but NFL players brand more money, so I should strength myself to play football game every twenty-four hours," and and so coming home and complaining that he doesn't like recess.

And that's bullshit. Everybody likes recess. The problem is that he's arbitrarily choosing to limit himself based on some bullshitty ideas he got into his head about success and what he'southward supposed to do.

Another email I get all the time is from people wanting advice on how to go a writer.

And my answer is the same: I accept no fucking idea.

As a child, I would write brusque stories in my room for fun. As a teenager, I would write music reviews and essays virtually bands I loved and and then show them to nobody. Once the internet came around, I spent hours upon hours on forums writing multi-page posts about inane topics—everything from guitar pickups to the causes of the Iraq War.

I never considered writing equally a potential career. I never even considered it a hobby or passion. To me, the things I wrote nearly were my passion: music, politics, philosophy. Writing was simply something I did because I felt like information technology.

And when I had to go looking for a career I could fall in love with, I didn't have to wait far. In fact, I didn't have to look at all. It chose me, in a way. Information technology was already there. Already something I was doing every twenty-four hour period, since I was a kid, without even thinking near it.

Because here'due south another betoken that might brand a few people salty: If you accept to look for what y'all're passionate about, then yous're probably non passionate virtually it at all.

If y'all're passionate nearly something, it will already experience similar such an ingrained part of your life that you lot will have to exist reminded by people that information technology'south not normal, that other people aren't similar that.

It didn't occur to me that writing two,000-word posts on forums was something nobody else considered fun. It never occurred to my friend that designing a logo is something that nearly people don't notice easy or fun. To him, information technology's so natural that he can't fifty-fifty imagine it being otherwise. And that's why it'south probably what he really should be doing.

A kid does non walk onto a playground and say to herself, "How do I discover fun?" She but goes and has fun.vii

If you have to look for what you lot relish in life, and then you're not going to enjoy anything.

And the real truth is that you already enjoy something. You already enjoy many things. You're only choosing to ignore them.