Motivation logo

Unpopular Opinion: Not Having a Passion is OK

A pessimistic approach to why the "follow your passion" narrative is overplayed.

By JJ LongPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
Like

Have you found your passion in life? No? NO? Follow you passion! Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life! Guess what? You probably won’t find your passion. Chances are, you might not even have the world’s definition of a “passion”.

Is that pessimistic? Yeah, yeah it fuckin’ is. I am currently at a point in my life where I’m “between passions”, as people say. Maybe between dreams/hobbies/goals. Who cares. Either way, some life happened, and what I did before turned out to be a load of shit, and what I want to do now doesn’t exist. Some people tell me “oh, that’s okay. You’re still young!” Other people look at me kind of nervously like I should know what I want to do by now. It used to get to me. Okay, it does still get to me. But the more I look at it, and the more I live life and try new things, the more I am so glad that I’m not one of those fake passion people

If you went to or are in college, remember the students in journalism when they all had to make blogs? Good hands-on application, and they have a writing portfolio, all good! But holy SHIT were these bad. Maybe not even bad in writing style, but just so fucking fake! “What I learned from playing Baseball” Dude, Brett, you probably wrote about gaining leadership skills in your 8th grade essay, you don’t have to mention it in one of your wordpress posts. Or how about “Why Travel Changed Me” or anything along those lines….Sure, traveling is great. Opening your eyes to world you didn’t know is cool. But man, half the time I read these blogs, I knew Abby had spent a week drinking in Cancun then wrote that blogpost.

I think we already know how bad the fake business students were. If you hungout with them, I’m sure you know that one kid who you smoked with who wouldn’t shut the fuck up about how “technically everything is just supply and demand, bro”. Man, I can’t handle these types of dudes. Holier than thou students who know everything. Students, listen up, if you’re in college, something cool is about to happen. When these know it all business students graduate, you get to watch them accept a pyramid-schemey cold-call sales team as an entry level position. Sure, your job is gonna suck too, but boy does it feel good to know Jon (with no H, bro) is miserable and ringing doorbells to make sales.

I won’t rip on the art students. I think the students in the art programs and artists alike can tell a fake when they see one. I play music and play some instruments for fun. That’s about it. I don’t get everything y’all do over in those art buildings. I’m not about to toss out negative opinions on a major that already gets stigmatized for doing stuff that us normies don’t understand.

It didn’t end after school either. Anyone who graduated saw it, and probably participated in it too! Our generation likes to brag about things. Specifically on Facebook. You won’t hear me say “our generation” or “kids these days” type stuff too often after this, because I believe we are actually doing great things, but god damn this one is ANNOYING. Listen, high school classmate, I just do NOT care that you’re working for your dad’s business and have a professional photo to go along with the announcement. I’m telling you guys, people in their TWENTIES are making an announcement about getting a new serving job over their old serving job, and racking up likes for it. I am 100% all for being proud of yourself and loving yourself. I can’t relate to either of those things. If you can, more power to you ya fuckin’ weirdo. I’m still allowed to complain.

I don’t know, I think from my subjective (and pessimistic) viewpoint, people say what they have to say to see success in a capitalistic world, even if that means exaagertaing your passions. It felt like in university, when people should be growing into their unique selves, all these students were just writing whatever they had to to get the good grade. You know what, I probably would have too. Luckily, I picked a pointless major where they didn’t make me create a blog.

The takeaway here is that people are fake. Not everyone, but enough for me to write a half-assed post about my annoyance. And in case you’re wondering.. Yes, I have interests. I also have hobbies and friends. I don’t know if I have a passion that aligns with capitalism in a way that I could turn it into a job. In fact, I don’t think I want to ruin a hobby of mine with the stress of making it financially successful. Maybe someday. For now, I am doing just fine inhaling too much marijuana smoke, and making fun of fake-passionate folk.

advicehappinessself helpsuccess
Like

About the Creator

JJ Long

I don't know why I have such strong opinions

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.