11 ms·

To fixate on finding work that makes us happy is a luxury

50 points by austinlchurch 10y ago

FussyZeus 10y ago
500. HN hug of death? Anyone got a cached version?
- imafish 10y ago
  http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lFMSlIonwxoJ:austinlchurch.com/screw-your-passion-get-a-job/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=dk http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lFMSlIo...
- lazypenguin 10y ago
  http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lFMSlIonwxoJ:austinlchurch.com/screw-your-passion-get-a-job/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lFMSlIo...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- LKAndrew 10y ago
  Also posted on medium: https://medium.com/@austinlchurch/8976ee275d85#.a493lr7j8 https://medium.com/@austinlchurch/8976ee275d85#.a493lr7j8
gregpardo 10y ago
I understand where this is coming from and yes many people are hung up on passion but there are a lot of people breaking their backs out there with no interest in what they are pursuing. It's not that complex, just weigh the pros and cons of your options and pick something that's inline with your goals and commitments.
sheraz 10y ago
Relevant: Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs (TV show) fame: Don't follow your passion https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CVEuPmVAb8o https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CVEuPmVAb8o
- golemotron 10y ago
  I see Mike Rowe's star rising over the next 4 years.
- FussyZeus 10y ago
  This is an excellent talk, but I wonder if Rowe realizes that the days of blue collar work are numbered? Tradesmen will be around for quite a while yet, sure, but everything will eventually be turned over to the machines. That's why we need to seriously invest in a proper changeover system to handle the droves of unemployed.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
wears_sweaters1 10y ago
Trade financial stability now for passions later is my take on this post, this resonates with me strongly as I'm at this very crossroads (and im a millennial) and leaning towards financial stability to provide foundation on which to find my passion. I always found it hard to "explore" what I wanted to do because time was always limited by how much money I had and I never had a lot.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  See, I've actually found the opposite: I was much happier when I stopped pretending the large salary was actually enough to justify wasting a third of my life, and just worked at the library on a cheap laptop while helping a friend build his house to cover bills. People also like me a lot better now that I don't hate a third of my life, am not trying to compensate for that with money, and have a certain zest from getting to genuinely work on things I'm passionate about. YMMV, as some passions are more expensive than mine to get in to, but my point was that there's a spectrum of reasonable reactions to work-life balance, and the choice needs to be individual.
- lordCarbonFiber 10y ago
  I wouldn't underestimate the cost of spending 8+ hours a day doing something you hate though. Depression is an effective road block to any sort of development (socially or professionally) and no matter how much money you make you can't buy years of your life back. YMMV
LKAndrew 10y ago
As someone who makes a great salary on doing what I love to do, I don't think it's all bullshit. Following your passion doesn't have to mean that you want to be a rock star. It's ridiculous to think that you can't find something you're passionate about in your work.
- eykanal 10y ago
  I think you're misunderstanding. If being able to support means stocking shelves or being the assistant janitor, then do that, and screw passionate. You have a responsibility. That comes before passion.
- icebraining 10y ago
  If you're finding something in your work to be passionate about, are you "following your passion"? I always read that expression to be about changing your life, not adjusting your passions to fit it.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    Yet the latter seems to be the only reliable way to accomplish it. I often wonder, if those people writing about "following passion" actually found a work that fits their passions, or made their passions fit their work...
- the_gastropod 10y ago
  I think this is a bit of a tightrope walk. It's very important to be grateful, thankful, and appreciative of the work you do. For most of us posting on HN, our jobs are what most would consider luxury jobs. Collectively, we've got it pretty damn good. I'd wager _most_ of us would not continue working these jobs if we had the option not to. If someone plopped <sufficiently large amount of money> into my bank account, I really don't think I'd continue working at my job, regardless of how much I appreciate it today.
at-fates-hands 10y ago
I worked with someone who had something similar to the author. I worked with an Iranian developer at one of my first gigs. He said his family fled Iran after the fall of the Shah because his family had been marked for death since his father was a successful businessman and owned a growing telecommunications company. When his family got here, he was just happy to be alive. His father used his technical knowledge to land a job at a computer company. He was told the same thing by his father. Work to provide for your family, then create your opportunities to do what you love. His father told him it was more important to be employed doing something, then sitting around chasing your dreams not doing anything. He said it was because he had to work menial jobs, it allowed him to go to school, get a degree, and move up in the world.
ravitation 10y ago
The accusations of "bloodsucking millennials" coming from other higher earning millennials (and ones who usually followed their "passions" to get there) is beyond ridiculous, it's actually a bit nauseating. The author starts the piece by saying that he is not only a millennial, but one that does work that intersects with his passions. That preface pretty much destroys any credibility he has to discuss dropping one's passions for a paycheck. Not everyone has a passion that also involves a high paycheck, and since yours does you really have no right to criticize those that don't. This line really sums up the sentiment. > You do not deserve to pursue your passion. Who are you to judge what someone deserves? From the contents of the piece, you gave up nothing in the pursuit of your paycheck (and if you did you should probably rethink the structure of the piece). Why should anyone else? Also, did you ever stop to think that maybe Santiago's father's passion was to provide for his family, and so - in a way - he was following his passion? This is all coming from a millennial that has a well paying job, and one that is also generally pretty damn proud of his generation. Go back to reading your Ayn Rand novels.
evo_9 10y ago
Work is a majority of your work. Keep that in mind folks. It's well worth the effort, and justifiably something to fixate on.
- icebraining 10y ago
  Work is a majority of your work. yeah, the rest is spent on HN :)
- the_gastropod 10y ago
  This is largely a choice—especially for the HN crowd, who typically earn above average salaries. If you choose to inflate your lifestyle to match your income, you're right—your work will be the majority of your [life's] work. If you choose to not do this, you can have a relatively brief career, and spend most of your life doing work you care about, regardless of the financials associated with it.
kbody 10y ago
"Screw Your Passion. Get a Job." what a title, and the same attitude throughout the article. While I'm not one of the people your post targets, I really dislike this kind of rhetoric. Where you have to use "strong" words to cause rumble for attention. Back to the core topic. I would argue about balance though. A lot of people are lucky to be in a position where they have that extra room. It's good to use part of that room, There are parts of the world where that room was present for a long time, and yet due to fallacy of logic and paternal traditions people were forces to a "safe" choice. Now that this room is not existent, you have the majority of people that hate their job and their "safe" choice is not safe anymore. At least with passion it would have been easier and happier even to the whole society. Suffice to say, that parents of course will try to do everything to take care of their family. No doubt about that.
- drvdevd 10y ago
  Admittedly I jumped straight to the comments on this one, but I have to say that I think there is a good financial, logistical incentive for following your "passion" in the modern world, because often the sort of job that you're not passionate about at all is the sort of job that doesn't pay well. Quite frankly if you want to make decent money, you will need to do something creative enough to differentiate yourself in the job market.
- ageofwant 10y ago
  The mystical myopic millennial trope is quite popular. It seems to me to be just a reflow of "kids these days" "Our sires' age was worse than our grandsires'. We, their sons, are more worthless than they; so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt." Horace, 20BC But maybe more jaded, I also see a business owner looking to maximize profit and minimize expenses by gas-lighting a bunch of kids into shoveling shit all day for peanuts.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
sidlls 10y ago
I have a different take on this. The idea of "pursue your passion" is a thing in part for the reasons the author implies (or is explicit about) but he's eliding something. He doesn't really touch on the capital owning class' interest in cheap labor, and "find work that you're passionate about" is about a subtle and indirect way of pursuing cheap labor, mainly by the implicit suggestion that offering employment that fulfills a passion is itself compensation to some degree. Edit for clarity: so my view is that blaming or scolding millennials for this may be a bit misplaced. They've been raised in an environment where they've been told repeatedly that they can (and should) pursue their passions as their careers and also that it's possible and even feasible for everyone to do so. "Money doesn't by happiness" may be technically true, but it is necessary in our society to fulfill basic needs and it's absurd to think its utility beyond that diminishes significantly.
ivemadeahugem 10y ago
I think the current focus on people following their passion is partly a practical response to the needs of creative/knowledge work. No one ever got pulled aside from ditch-digging to be asked "I'm just not sure if you're really into this"
ashark 10y ago
“You a lawyer, Frank?” “Me? A lawyer? No. Why?” “Hoping you might be, is all. I could use a lawyer. Whaddya do, then? Advertising man, or what?” “No. I work for Knox Business Machines.” “Whaddya do there? You design the machines, or make them, or sell them, or repair them, or what?” “Sort of help sell them, I guess. I don’t really have much to do with the machines themselves; I work in the office. Actually it’s sort of a stupid job. I mean there’s nothing — you know, interesting about it, or anything.” “Interesting?” John Givings seemed offended by the word. “You worry about whether a job is ‘interesting’ or not? I thought only women did that. Women and boys. Didn’t have you figured that way.” “Oh, look, the sun’s coming out!” Mrs. Givings cried. She jumped up, went to the picture window and peered through it, her back very rigid. “Maybe we’ll see a rainbow. Wouldn’t that be lovely?” The skin at the back of Frank’s neck was prickling with annoyance. “All I meant,” he explained, “is that I don’t like the job and never have.” “Whaddya do it for, then. Oh, okay okay –” John Givings ducked his head and weakly raised one hand as if in a hopeless attempt to ward off the bludgeon of public chastisement. “Okay; I know; it’s none of my business. This is what old Helen calls Being Tactless, Dear. That’s my trouble, you see; always has been. Forget I said it. You want to play house, you got to have a job. You want to play very nice house, very sweet house, then you got to have a job you don’t like. Great. This is the way ninety-eight-point-nine per cent of the people work things out, so believe me buddy you’ve got nothing to apologize for. Anybody comes along and says ‘Whaddya do it for?’ you can be pretty sure he’s on a four-hour pass from the State funny-farm; all agreed. Are we all agreed there, Helen?” - Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road
randomnumber314 10y ago
Why do people, such as this author, treat the world as this dichotomy of passion and work? Isn't wanting to be great at whatever you do a passion? Isn't wanting to be challenged and learning new things a passion? I've worked (literally) in the shit, and now I'm writing this on a $2,500 Mac a company bought for me, while sitting at a desk. I think the lesson us millennials are failing to learn is that you can pursue your passion, but find a way to do so that is valuable to others. Want to end world hunger? Okay, quit whining about the 1%, get to work, and create an organization that can make that happen. If it truly was your passion, there shouldn't be anything stopping you from accomplishing it. It seems, then, that the "passion" is really just an excuse for not trying.
adregan 10y ago
In my 20s I got my masters degree in poetry and taught literature. I was content with the work but had a programming hobby that was more creatively satisfying than teaching. I quit my job to follow my passion. Fast forward several years, and I'm still programming; I'm pretty good at it, and I really enjoy the work. My passion was being creative, and I used to write poetry, but I found a way to express my creativity and make good money in programming (I truly find programming to be a transcendent creative process—much like writing poetry). I, like many others, have had times when my oxen were in the ditch, and I had no choice but to work to get them out. Some folks are stuck in that place. But if you can, try to involve a little passion in your work and carve out a space where you can feel at least a little fulfilled at the end of a day. P.S. I just read the author's bio, and coincidentally, it's not so different from my path, so flip a coin and take either person's advice—or neither person's advice.
twoquestions 10y ago
You really can't do your best work unless you're at least somewhat passionate about it. I don't get why people can think you're more productive at a job you dislike or hate and have to force yourself to get anything done, rather than doing something valuable that you'll get things done without huge amounts of willpower. Failing to find something that your're passionate about and valuable is cheating both yourself and other people out of the value you could be creating, if not for your masochism.
- hso1 10y ago
  What do we need our passion for? To motivate ourselves? IMO, we have a problem when we expect to feel motivated to do stuff. I think we need to learn to do stuff even if we "don't feel it" yet, that state comes later as a reward for doing. Long ago I read an article that made me think about this: http://www.wisdomination.com/screw-motivation-what-you-need-is-discipline/ http://www.wisdomination.com/screw-motivation-what-you-need-...
  - twoquestions 10y ago
    No doubt going on passion alone is foolhardy, but you'll be less productive if you hate what you do. I know more than a few people who avoid seeking jobs they enjoy because they feel "work should be miserable and hard". I don't understand them at all.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Entering work life gets one disillusioned about that pretty fast. Those kinds of jobs you want us to find are very rare, and the only reliable way to love a job that's accessible to the most of us is to keep harming your own soul until you finally develop a case of Stockholm syndrome for your line of work. Seriously, most jobs are about you doing stupid - and often morally questionable - shit to enrich the owners, while only incidentally providing any value to society at large, and only the minimum amount of value the company can get away with. All of that in exchange for currency which you need to stay alive. Do you think grocery store clerks have passion for their work? In particular, are they passionate about all the shenanigans like washing old meat with dishwashing fluid to make it smell less? No, they do this to stay alive. Do you think programmers writing all those stupid superaddictive on-line games have passion for sucking money out of people who lack impulse control? Well, maybe they do, but that's exactly the soul damage I'm talking about. So sure, by not working on something I'm passionate about I am "cheating" the society out of the value I could be creating. Except that the society is not often giving away jobs I can be passionate about without utterly destroying my very self.
dwc 10y ago
Ah, the never ending debate about passion. What if you put that aside for a while and think about it in terms of going with your strengths instead? Same thing, different angle. If there's any choice about what job you might take, take the one where you can add the most value, relatively. That's a job where you'll be appreciated more and hopefully compensated well for. The thing is, there's a correlation there to passion, but passion is not required.
mamadrood 10y ago
Screw that. I don't want to live just to pay the bills, buy a house too big for me, a big car that I don't need and consume more than I should. If you think the way of life of your elders made the world a better place, go ahead, think and do like them, maybe it will make you happy, like them. I may be disrespectful, but for me it looks like my elders left me with a suffocating planet populated by too many people taking too many drugs. And I don't want to be a part of this, I'm not smart enough to change the future, I probably won't do much good to mankind, so I'm going to enjoy myself and leave the tiniest footprint when I'm leaving. Nobody owes us fun, we owe it to ourselves.
skizm 10y ago
I think most people commenting here missed the key lines: > Are you a burden to those around you? > No? Good on you! By all means pursue your passion. Feed your Chinese Crested Hairless. > Yes? Screw your passion. Get a job. Support yourself. Pay your own way so that you can stop draining the people and resources around you.
- ravitation 10y ago
  Okay. Define burden.
  - h_r 10y ago
    How about "a net drain on resources that the provider of the resources would prefer to spend elsewhere"?
treebeard901 10y ago
Pretty good article. Some parts of this are very relevant to me at the moment.
jasode 10y ago
submitted title: "To fixate on finding work that makes us happy is a luxury" blog actual title: "Screw Your Passion. Get a Job." Both the submitted title and the blog's title do not pinpoint the author's main issue: don't make others (such as your parents) unfairly pay for your pursuit of passion. It's not about "passion". It's about funding. They are orthogonal. So... either: 1) pursue your passion part time while paying the bills with a "day job" -- which is what many musicians, poets, novelists, artists, etc do. 2) consciously downsize your lifestyle and stick to the budget of a starving artist (cheap apartment, used car, no Starbucks) while selling your artwork on the street or whatever. When the big commission money from the Guggenheim Museum comes in, you can start buying Starbucks. Many variations of those 2 options can keep passion-seekers from burdening their parents.
- ravitation 10y ago
  That operates under the assumptions that you are: 1) Making others pay for your pursuit of passion. 2) That having others paying for your pursuit of passion is unfair to them. Neither of which are safe, or even good, assumptions to make. Conversely, I am willing to assume that Santiago's father probably gladly paid for some things that allowed his son to pursue his passions, and - as stated in the piece - allowed him to do work that intersects his passions. Immigrating was probably one of those things.
  - jasode 10y ago
    >Neither of which are safe, or even good, assumptions to make. I'm not making that assumption. I'm responding to the article. Author already framed it with the question: "Are you a burden to those around you?" That self-diagnostic question is really the main point of the article. The "screw passion" in the title is just provocative bait. The article goes on to admonish those who mentally say "yes" to that question.
    - ravitation 10y ago
      I am also responding to the article, and I'm also responding to your response to the article. I'm responding to part of your response that seems to take the assumptions that are made in the article at face value. Yes, he promotes that self-diagnosis without defining burden, which is also kind of the point of my response to your comment.
apeacox 10y ago
Bull shit presented in an interesting and rhetoric way.
markwaldron 10y ago
Getting 500 on and off. Web Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20161221164424/http://austinlchurch.com/screw-your-passion-get-a-job/ https://web.archive.org/web/20161221164424/http://austinlchu...
Taylor_OD 10y ago
I've got a job I really enjoy now and make a decent salary. However it's my time outside of work that I'm more concerned with. Out side of one key hobby I don't really know what to do with my time so it doesnt feel wasted. I've never had an issue putting in my 8+ hours day if I have something to look forward to when I get home.
RUG3Y 10y ago
So, we should just stick with the status quo, be serfs and dig ditches?
gumby 10y ago
Oh come on: there's a hierarchy of needs and if one level is satisfied it opens up options at another. Or to put it another way: suffering is not itself a virtue, but the willingness to suffer when needed certainly is. And if suffering is unnecessary, failing to do so is hardly wrong! My grandfather had a third grade education and worked quite hard; outside work he enjoyed his life. He and my grandmother insisted that all the kids get educations and were gratified that their kids could choose and enjoy a different kind of fulfilment. Baby boomers were spoiled by parents who found themselves in a prosperous society after themselves having grown up in depression and war: they didn't want their kids to have to live such a life. The results were mixed (I'm younger than the boomers) but I still feel that was a great choice. If you find yourself in a circumstance where that isn't possible then you need to just put your shoulder to whatever grindstone you can.
holydude 10y ago
I make around 70ke/pa in Europe doing a very shitty IT job. It consists of configuring some shitty internal apps and debugging them. No transferrable skills, absolutely zero chance of touching something new or improve myself in any area. Previously I used to work on interesting stuff and a devops department for bigger or smaller companies using aws,docker and friends, golang and some other "breath taking" technologies. I earned about 35k E/pa. What do I do ?
lkjhgfdsa1 10y ago
Parents choose to sacrifice their own happiness for the pursuit of happiness of their children when they have children. This article applies to them, I agree, because they have taken on a lifetime (or 18 years at least) commitment to others' lives. Non-parents do not have to sacrifice their happiness for anyone else and can therefore pursue their own happiness. I don't see anything wrong with that. To assume that everyone must work a hard job they hate just to make more money when there are alternatives is absurd. By this logic, I should quit the job I'm working now doing something I like (software) simply because I could make x times more money on Wall St. and be miserable. Or even parents who are doing well and paying the bills: why would they pursue higher paying jobs they hate when they are able to manage just fine? This one size fits all solution seems illogical. And I won't even get into what happens to the idea of 'hard work' when automation starts to take over ...

50 points by austinlchurch 10y ago

FussyZeus 10y ago

500. HN hug of death? Anyone got a cached version?

imafish 10y ago
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lFMSlIonwxoJ:austinlchurch.com/screw-your-passion-get-a-job/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=dk http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lFMSlIo...
lazypenguin 10y ago
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lFMSlIonwxoJ:austinlchurch.com/screw-your-passion-get-a-job/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lFMSlIo...
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
LKAndrew 10y ago
Also posted on medium: https://medium.com/@austinlchurch/8976ee275d85#.a493lr7j8 https://medium.com/@austinlchurch/8976ee275d85#.a493lr7j8

gregpardo 10y ago

I understand where this is coming from and yes many people are hung up on passion but there are a lot of people breaking their backs out there with no interest in what they are pursuing. It's not that complex, just weigh the pros and cons of your options and pick something that's inline with your goals and commitments.

sheraz 10y ago

Relevant: Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs (TV show) fame: Don't follow your passion https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CVEuPmVAb8o https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CVEuPmVAb8o

golemotron 10y ago
I see Mike Rowe's star rising over the next 4 years.
FussyZeus 10y ago
This is an excellent talk, but I wonder if Rowe realizes that the days of blue collar work are numbered? Tradesmen will be around for quite a while yet, sure, but everything will eventually be turned over to the machines. That's why we need to seriously invest in a proper changeover system to handle the droves of unemployed.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

wears_sweaters1 10y ago

Trade financial stability now for passions later is my take on this post, this resonates with me strongly as I'm at this very crossroads (and im a millennial) and leaning towards financial stability to provide foundation on which to find my passion. I always found it hard to "explore" what I wanted to do because time was always limited by how much money I had and I never had a lot.

SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
See, I've actually found the opposite: I was much happier when I stopped pretending the large salary was actually enough to justify wasting a third of my life, and just worked at the library on a cheap laptop while helping a friend build his house to cover bills. People also like me a lot better now that I don't hate a third of my life, am not trying to compensate for that with money, and have a certain zest from getting to genuinely work on things I'm passionate about. YMMV, as some passions are more expensive than mine to get in to, but my point was that there's a spectrum of reasonable reactions to work-life balance, and the choice needs to be individual.
lordCarbonFiber 10y ago
I wouldn't underestimate the cost of spending 8+ hours a day doing something you hate though. Depression is an effective road block to any sort of development (socially or professionally) and no matter how much money you make you can't buy years of your life back. YMMV

LKAndrew 10y ago

As someone who makes a great salary on doing what I love to do, I don't think it's all bullshit. Following your passion doesn't have to mean that you want to be a rock star. It's ridiculous to think that you can't find something you're passionate about in your work.

eykanal 10y ago
I think you're misunderstanding. If being able to support means stocking shelves or being the assistant janitor, then do that, and screw passionate. You have a responsibility. That comes before passion.
icebraining 10y ago
If you're finding something in your work to be passionate about, are you "following your passion"? I always read that expression to be about changing your life, not adjusting your passions to fit it.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Yet the latter seems to be the only reliable way to accomplish it. I often wonder, if those people writing about "following passion" actually found a work that fits their passions, or made their passions fit their work...
the_gastropod 10y ago
I think this is a bit of a tightrope walk. It's very important to be grateful, thankful, and appreciative of the work you do. For most of us posting on HN, our jobs are what most would consider luxury jobs. Collectively, we've got it pretty damn good. I'd wager _most_ of us would not continue working these jobs if we had the option not to. If someone plopped <sufficiently large amount of money> into my bank account, I really don't think I'd continue working at my job, regardless of how much I appreciate it today.

at-fates-hands 10y ago

I worked with someone who had something similar to the author. I worked with an Iranian developer at one of my first gigs. He said his family fled Iran after the fall of the Shah because his family had been marked for death since his father was a successful businessman and owned a growing telecommunications company. When his family got here, he was just happy to be alive. His father used his technical knowledge to land a job at a computer company. He was told the same thing by his father. Work to provide for your family, then create your opportunities to do what you love. His father told him it was more important to be employed doing something, then sitting around chasing your dreams not doing anything. He said it was because he had to work menial jobs, it allowed him to go to school, get a degree, and move up in the world.

ravitation 10y ago

The accusations of "bloodsucking millennials" coming from other higher earning millennials (and ones who usually followed their "passions" to get there) is beyond ridiculous, it's actually a bit nauseating. The author starts the piece by saying that he is not only a millennial, but one that does work that intersects with his passions. That preface pretty much destroys any credibility he has to discuss dropping one's passions for a paycheck. Not everyone has a passion that also involves a high paycheck, and since yours does you really have no right to criticize those that don't. This line really sums up the sentiment. > You do not deserve to pursue your passion. Who are you to judge what someone deserves? From the contents of the piece, you gave up nothing in the pursuit of your paycheck (and if you did you should probably rethink the structure of the piece). Why should anyone else? Also, did you ever stop to think that maybe Santiago's father's passion was to provide for his family, and so - in a way - he was following his passion? This is all coming from a millennial that has a well paying job, and one that is also generally pretty damn proud of his generation. Go back to reading your Ayn Rand novels.

evo_9 10y ago

Work is a majority of your work. Keep that in mind folks. It's well worth the effort, and justifiably something to fixate on.

icebraining 10y ago
Work is a majority of your work. yeah, the rest is spent on HN :)
the_gastropod 10y ago
This is largely a choice—especially for the HN crowd, who typically earn above average salaries. If you choose to inflate your lifestyle to match your income, you're right—your work will be the majority of your [life's] work. If you choose to not do this, you can have a relatively brief career, and spend most of your life doing work you care about, regardless of the financials associated with it.

kbody 10y ago

"Screw Your Passion. Get a Job." what a title, and the same attitude throughout the article. While I'm not one of the people your post targets, I really dislike this kind of rhetoric. Where you have to use "strong" words to cause rumble for attention. Back to the core topic. I would argue about balance though. A lot of people are lucky to be in a position where they have that extra room. It's good to use part of that room, There are parts of the world where that room was present for a long time, and yet due to fallacy of logic and paternal traditions people were forces to a "safe" choice. Now that this room is not existent, you have the majority of people that hate their job and their "safe" choice is not safe anymore. At least with passion it would have been easier and happier even to the whole society. Suffice to say, that parents of course will try to do everything to take care of their family. No doubt about that.

drvdevd 10y ago
Admittedly I jumped straight to the comments on this one, but I have to say that I think there is a good financial, logistical incentive for following your "passion" in the modern world, because often the sort of job that you're not passionate about at all is the sort of job that doesn't pay well. Quite frankly if you want to make decent money, you will need to do something creative enough to differentiate yourself in the job market.
ageofwant 10y ago
The mystical myopic millennial trope is quite popular. It seems to me to be just a reflow of "kids these days" "Our sires' age was worse than our grandsires'. We, their sons, are more worthless than they; so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt." Horace, 20BC But maybe more jaded, I also see a business owner looking to maximize profit and minimize expenses by gas-lighting a bunch of kids into shoveling shit all day for peanuts.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

sidlls 10y ago

I have a different take on this. The idea of "pursue your passion" is a thing in part for the reasons the author implies (or is explicit about) but he's eliding something. He doesn't really touch on the capital owning class' interest in cheap labor, and "find work that you're passionate about" is about a subtle and indirect way of pursuing cheap labor, mainly by the implicit suggestion that offering employment that fulfills a passion is itself compensation to some degree. Edit for clarity: so my view is that blaming or scolding millennials for this may be a bit misplaced. They've been raised in an environment where they've been told repeatedly that they can (and should) pursue their passions as their careers and also that it's possible and even feasible for everyone to do so. "Money doesn't by happiness" may be technically true, but it is necessary in our society to fulfill basic needs and it's absurd to think its utility beyond that diminishes significantly.

ivemadeahugem 10y ago

I think the current focus on people following their passion is partly a practical response to the needs of creative/knowledge work. No one ever got pulled aside from ditch-digging to be asked "I'm just not sure if you're really into this"

ashark 10y ago

“You a lawyer, Frank?” “Me? A lawyer? No. Why?” “Hoping you might be, is all. I could use a lawyer. Whaddya do, then? Advertising man, or what?” “No. I work for Knox Business Machines.” “Whaddya do there? You design the machines, or make them, or sell them, or repair them, or what?” “Sort of help sell them, I guess. I don’t really have much to do with the machines themselves; I work in the office. Actually it’s sort of a stupid job. I mean there’s nothing — you know, interesting about it, or anything.” “Interesting?” John Givings seemed offended by the word. “You worry about whether a job is ‘interesting’ or not? I thought only women did that. Women and boys. Didn’t have you figured that way.” “Oh, look, the sun’s coming out!” Mrs. Givings cried. She jumped up, went to the picture window and peered through it, her back very rigid. “Maybe we’ll see a rainbow. Wouldn’t that be lovely?” The skin at the back of Frank’s neck was prickling with annoyance. “All I meant,” he explained, “is that I don’t like the job and never have.” “Whaddya do it for, then. Oh, okay okay –” John Givings ducked his head and weakly raised one hand as if in a hopeless attempt to ward off the bludgeon of public chastisement. “Okay; I know; it’s none of my business. This is what old Helen calls Being Tactless, Dear. That’s my trouble, you see; always has been. Forget I said it. You want to play house, you got to have a job. You want to play very nice house, very sweet house, then you got to have a job you don’t like. Great. This is the way ninety-eight-point-nine per cent of the people work things out, so believe me buddy you’ve got nothing to apologize for. Anybody comes along and says ‘Whaddya do it for?’ you can be pretty sure he’s on a four-hour pass from the State funny-farm; all agreed. Are we all agreed there, Helen?” - Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road

randomnumber314 10y ago

Why do people, such as this author, treat the world as this dichotomy of passion and work? Isn't wanting to be great at whatever you do a passion? Isn't wanting to be challenged and learning new things a passion? I've worked (literally) in the shit, and now I'm writing this on a $2,500 Mac a company bought for me, while sitting at a desk. I think the lesson us millennials are failing to learn is that you can pursue your passion, but find a way to do so that is valuable to others. Want to end world hunger? Okay, quit whining about the 1%, get to work, and create an organization that can make that happen. If it truly was your passion, there shouldn't be anything stopping you from accomplishing it. It seems, then, that the "passion" is really just an excuse for not trying.

adregan 10y ago

In my 20s I got my masters degree in poetry and taught literature. I was content with the work but had a programming hobby that was more creatively satisfying than teaching. I quit my job to follow my passion. Fast forward several years, and I'm still programming; I'm pretty good at it, and I really enjoy the work. My passion was being creative, and I used to write poetry, but I found a way to express my creativity and make good money in programming (I truly find programming to be a transcendent creative process—much like writing poetry). I, like many others, have had times when my oxen were in the ditch, and I had no choice but to work to get them out. Some folks are stuck in that place. But if you can, try to involve a little passion in your work and carve out a space where you can feel at least a little fulfilled at the end of a day. P.S. I just read the author's bio, and coincidentally, it's not so different from my path, so flip a coin and take either person's advice—or neither person's advice.

twoquestions 10y ago

You really can't do your best work unless you're at least somewhat passionate about it. I don't get why people can think you're more productive at a job you dislike or hate and have to force yourself to get anything done, rather than doing something valuable that you'll get things done without huge amounts of willpower. Failing to find something that your're passionate about and valuable is cheating both yourself and other people out of the value you could be creating, if not for your masochism.

hso1 10y ago
What do we need our passion for? To motivate ourselves? IMO, we have a problem when we expect to feel motivated to do stuff. I think we need to learn to do stuff even if we "don't feel it" yet, that state comes later as a reward for doing. Long ago I read an article that made me think about this: http://www.wisdomination.com/screw-motivation-what-you-need-is-discipline/ http://www.wisdomination.com/screw-motivation-what-you-need-...
- twoquestions 10y ago
  No doubt going on passion alone is foolhardy, but you'll be less productive if you hate what you do. I know more than a few people who avoid seeking jobs they enjoy because they feel "work should be miserable and hard". I don't understand them at all.
TeMPOraL 10y ago
Entering work life gets one disillusioned about that pretty fast. Those kinds of jobs you want us to find are very rare, and the only reliable way to love a job that's accessible to the most of us is to keep harming your own soul until you finally develop a case of Stockholm syndrome for your line of work. Seriously, most jobs are about you doing stupid - and often morally questionable - shit to enrich the owners, while only incidentally providing any value to society at large, and only the minimum amount of value the company can get away with. All of that in exchange for currency which you need to stay alive. Do you think grocery store clerks have passion for their work? In particular, are they passionate about all the shenanigans like washing old meat with dishwashing fluid to make it smell less? No, they do this to stay alive. Do you think programmers writing all those stupid superaddictive on-line games have passion for sucking money out of people who lack impulse control? Well, maybe they do, but that's exactly the soul damage I'm talking about. So sure, by not working on something I'm passionate about I am "cheating" the society out of the value I could be creating. Except that the society is not often giving away jobs I can be passionate about without utterly destroying my very self.

dwc 10y ago

Ah, the never ending debate about passion. What if you put that aside for a while and think about it in terms of going with your strengths instead? Same thing, different angle. If there's any choice about what job you might take, take the one where you can add the most value, relatively. That's a job where you'll be appreciated more and hopefully compensated well for. The thing is, there's a correlation there to passion, but passion is not required.

mamadrood 10y ago

Screw that. I don't want to live just to pay the bills, buy a house too big for me, a big car that I don't need and consume more than I should. If you think the way of life of your elders made the world a better place, go ahead, think and do like them, maybe it will make you happy, like them. I may be disrespectful, but for me it looks like my elders left me with a suffocating planet populated by too many people taking too many drugs. And I don't want to be a part of this, I'm not smart enough to change the future, I probably won't do much good to mankind, so I'm going to enjoy myself and leave the tiniest footprint when I'm leaving. Nobody owes us fun, we owe it to ourselves.

skizm 10y ago

I think most people commenting here missed the key lines: > Are you a burden to those around you? > No? Good on you! By all means pursue your passion. Feed your Chinese Crested Hairless. > Yes? Screw your passion. Get a job. Support yourself. Pay your own way so that you can stop draining the people and resources around you.

ravitation 10y ago
Okay. Define burden.
- h_r 10y ago
  How about "a net drain on resources that the provider of the resources would prefer to spend elsewhere"?

treebeard901 10y ago

Pretty good article. Some parts of this are very relevant to me at the moment.

jasode 10y ago

submitted title: "To fixate on finding work that makes us happy is a luxury" blog actual title: "Screw Your Passion. Get a Job." Both the submitted title and the blog's title do not pinpoint the author's main issue: don't make others (such as your parents) unfairly pay for your pursuit of passion. It's not about "passion". It's about funding. They are orthogonal. So... either: 1) pursue your passion part time while paying the bills with a "day job" -- which is what many musicians, poets, novelists, artists, etc do. 2) consciously downsize your lifestyle and stick to the budget of a starving artist (cheap apartment, used car, no Starbucks) while selling your artwork on the street or whatever. When the big commission money from the Guggenheim Museum comes in, you can start buying Starbucks. Many variations of those 2 options can keep passion-seekers from burdening their parents.

ravitation 10y ago
That operates under the assumptions that you are: 1) Making others pay for your pursuit of passion. 2) That having others paying for your pursuit of passion is unfair to them. Neither of which are safe, or even good, assumptions to make. Conversely, I am willing to assume that Santiago's father probably gladly paid for some things that allowed his son to pursue his passions, and - as stated in the piece - allowed him to do work that intersects his passions. Immigrating was probably one of those things.
- jasode 10y ago
  >Neither of which are safe, or even good, assumptions to make. I'm not making that assumption. I'm responding to the article. Author already framed it with the question: "Are you a burden to those around you?" That self-diagnostic question is really the main point of the article. The "screw passion" in the title is just provocative bait. The article goes on to admonish those who mentally say "yes" to that question.
  - ravitation 10y ago
    I am also responding to the article, and I'm also responding to your response to the article. I'm responding to part of your response that seems to take the assumptions that are made in the article at face value. Yes, he promotes that self-diagnosis without defining burden, which is also kind of the point of my response to your comment.

apeacox 10y ago

Bull shit presented in an interesting and rhetoric way.

markwaldron 10y ago

Getting 500 on and off. Web Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20161221164424/http://austinlchurch.com/screw-your-passion-get-a-job/ https://web.archive.org/web/20161221164424/http://austinlchu...

Taylor_OD 10y ago

I've got a job I really enjoy now and make a decent salary. However it's my time outside of work that I'm more concerned with. Out side of one key hobby I don't really know what to do with my time so it doesnt feel wasted. I've never had an issue putting in my 8+ hours day if I have something to look forward to when I get home.

RUG3Y 10y ago

So, we should just stick with the status quo, be serfs and dig ditches?

gumby 10y ago

Oh come on: there's a hierarchy of needs and if one level is satisfied it opens up options at another. Or to put it another way: suffering is not itself a virtue, but the willingness to suffer when needed certainly is. And if suffering is unnecessary, failing to do so is hardly wrong! My grandfather had a third grade education and worked quite hard; outside work he enjoyed his life. He and my grandmother insisted that all the kids get educations and were gratified that their kids could choose and enjoy a different kind of fulfilment. Baby boomers were spoiled by parents who found themselves in a prosperous society after themselves having grown up in depression and war: they didn't want their kids to have to live such a life. The results were mixed (I'm younger than the boomers) but I still feel that was a great choice. If you find yourself in a circumstance where that isn't possible then you need to just put your shoulder to whatever grindstone you can.

holydude 10y ago

I make around 70ke/pa in Europe doing a very shitty IT job. It consists of configuring some shitty internal apps and debugging them. No transferrable skills, absolutely zero chance of touching something new or improve myself in any area. Previously I used to work on interesting stuff and a devops department for bigger or smaller companies using aws,docker and friends, golang and some other "breath taking" technologies. I earned about 35k E/pa. What do I do ?

lkjhgfdsa1 10y ago

Parents choose to sacrifice their own happiness for the pursuit of happiness of their children when they have children. This article applies to them, I agree, because they have taken on a lifetime (or 18 years at least) commitment to others' lives. Non-parents do not have to sacrifice their happiness for anyone else and can therefore pursue their own happiness. I don't see anything wrong with that. To assume that everyone must work a hard job they hate just to make more money when there are alternatives is absurd. By this logic, I should quit the job I'm working now doing something I like (software) simply because I could make x times more money on Wall St. and be miserable. Or even parents who are doing well and paying the bills: why would they pursue higher paying jobs they hate when they are able to manage just fine? This one size fits all solution seems illogical. And I won't even get into what happens to the idea of 'hard work' when automation starts to take over ...