Chapter 251 - “How Do I Find My Passion?”[2] (1/2)

Today, I received approximately the 11,504th 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 any 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 have no f.u.c.k.i.n.g clue. If you don't have any idea what to do with yourself, what makes you think some jackass with a website would? I'm a writer, not a fortune-teller.

But more importantly, what I want to say to these people is this: that's the whole point — ”not knowing” is the whole f.u.c.k.i.n.g point. Life is all about not knowing, and then doing something anyway. All of life is like this. All of it. And it's not going to get any easier just because you found out you love your job cleaning septic tanks or you scored a dream gig writing indie movies.

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

I call bullshit. You already found your passion, you're just ignoring it. Seriously, you're awake 16 hours a day, what the f.u.c.k do you do with your time? You're doing something, obviously. You're talking about something. There's some topic or activity or idea that dominates a significant amount of your free time, your conversations, your web browsing, and it dominates them without you consciously pursuing it or looking for it.

It's right there in front of you, you're just avoiding it. For whatever reason, you're avoiding it. You're telling yourself, ”Oh well, yeah, I love comic books but that doesn't count. You can't make money with comic books.”

F.u.c.k you, have you ever tried?

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

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

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

It's priorities.

And even then, who says you need to make money doing what you love? Since when does everyone feel entitled to love every f.u.c.k.i.n.g second of their job? Really, what is so wrong with working an OK normal job with some cool people you like, and then pursuing your passion in your free time on the side? Has the world turned upside-down or is this not suddenly a novel idea to people?

Look, here's another slap in the face for you: every job sucks sometimes. There's no such thing as some passionate activity that you will never get tired of, never get stressed over, never complain about. It doesn't exist. I am living my dream job (which happened by accident, by the way. I never in a million years planned on this happening; like a kid on a playground I just went and tried it), and I still hate about 30% of it. Some days more.

Again, that's just life.

The issue here is, once again, expectations. If you think you're supposed to be working 70-hour work weeks and sleeping in your office like Steve Jobs and loving every second of it, you've been watching too many shitty movies. If you think you're supposed to wake up every single day dancing out of your pajamas because you get to go to work, then you've been drinking the Kool-Aid. Life doesn't work like that. It's just unrealistic. There's a thing most of us need called balance.

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

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