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> Maybe this is what people mean when they tell us to "find our passion", but that phrase seems pretty abstract to me. Maybe instead we should encourage people

> Maybe this is what people mean when they tell us to "find our passion", but that phrase seems pretty abstract to me. Maybe instead we should encourage people to find the hard problems they like to work on. Which problems do you want to keep working on, even when they turn out to be harder than you expected? Which kinds of frustration do you enjoy, or at least are willing to endure while you figure things out? Answers to these very practical questions might help you find a place where you can build an interesting and rewarding life. I think this mode of thinking is useful for helping people identify passions... but as advice, I think it ultimately falls short in the same way that "follow your passion" does. It just assumes that everyone has a passion- an economically viable one at that. What if you don't? What about simple people who don't want to focus on solving problems? This might be hard for most HN readers to sympathize with. People with technical backgrounds tend to be driven problem solvers. But I don't think most people are really like that. "Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life." Making a living doing what you love sounds great, but I frankly don't think it's a realistic expectation for everyone to have and I worry that we're just setting people up for disappointment by encouraging it so strongly.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
> What about simple people who don't want to focus on solving problems? This might be hard for most HN readers to sympathize with. People with technical backgrounds tend to be driven problem solvers. I don't know about that. If the the typical HN reader cared about solving problems they wouldn't switch jobs every two years and keep rewriting the same things over and over in the latest fad framework.
shagie 6y ago
It isn't about finding passions... its about finding out what you can do to make a living. On /r/cscareerquestions there is a not infrequent subject of posting - people who get into software development and find that they really hate sitting in front of a computer or having to support and debug code. When everything is going well, they enjoy writing code but as soon as the harder problems come, it's not enjoyable. Personally, I love photography as a hobby. I've got (check Adobe Lightroom) 200 GB of photographs... a good chunk of those are from when I was shooting slide and scanning them. When I was unemployed in '09, I looked into what it would take to become a professional photographer - and I realized I really didn't want to do that. Clicking the shutter is fun, but the harder problems of being a photographer (scheduling, wedding photography, marketing, sales, etc...) I really didn't enjoy doing at all. A sibling of mine went from being a manager of a yoga studio to being an RN (the hard work of being an RN pays better than trying to run your own yoga studio). Its not something that my sibling is passionate about (like yoga was) - but its hard work that my sibling is able to do, endure, and be well compensated for. Yoga? Its now more of a hobby (and there are other outlets for the passion). From the blog post: > I realize that "Find your passion" makes for a more compelling motivational poster than "What hard problems do you enjoy working on?" (and even that's a lot better than "What kind of pain are you willing to endure?"), but it might give some people a more realistic way to approach finding their life's work. There are other parts of the workforce where someone can get a job that pays acceptably and probably something that people who don't want to be solving problems can find a job. The advice for job seekers shouldn't be "maximize your happiness" but rather "minimize your unhappiness".

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago

> What about simple people who don't want to focus on solving problems? This might be hard for most HN readers to sympathize with. People with technical backgrounds tend to be driven problem solvers. I don't know about that. If the the typical HN reader cared about solving problems they wouldn't switch jobs every two years and keep rewriting the same things over and over in the latest fad framework.

shagie 6y ago

It isn't about finding passions... its about finding out what you can do to make a living. On /r/cscareerquestions there is a not infrequent subject of posting - people who get into software development and find that they really hate sitting in front of a computer or having to support and debug code. When everything is going well, they enjoy writing code but as soon as the harder problems come, it's not enjoyable. Personally, I love photography as a hobby. I've got (check Adobe Lightroom) 200 GB of photographs... a good chunk of those are from when I was shooting slide and scanning them. When I was unemployed in '09, I looked into what it would take to become a professional photographer - and I realized I really didn't want to do that. Clicking the shutter is fun, but the harder problems of being a photographer (scheduling, wedding photography, marketing, sales, etc...) I really didn't enjoy doing at all. A sibling of mine went from being a manager of a yoga studio to being an RN (the hard work of being an RN pays better than trying to run your own yoga studio). Its not something that my sibling is passionate about (like yoga was) - but its hard work that my sibling is able to do, endure, and be well compensated for. Yoga? Its now more of a hobby (and there are other outlets for the passion). From the blog post: > I realize that "Find your passion" makes for a more compelling motivational poster than "What hard problems do you enjoy working on?" (and even that's a lot better than "What kind of pain are you willing to endure?"), but it might give some people a more realistic way to approach finding their life's work. There are other parts of the workforce where someone can get a job that pays acceptably and probably something that people who don't want to be solving problems can find a job. The advice for job seekers shouldn't be "maximize your happiness" but rather "minimize your unhappiness".