Re:‘Find Your Passion’ Is Awful Advice
by AndrewKemendo on Friday July 13, 2018 @01:55PM
(#17525146)
Except it's universally true that the most "successful" people in the world did "follow their passion."
A different way to say it is that, people who make big impacts on the world are obsessed with the right problem at the right place, and the right time.
We all know the crank who has been obsessed with some problem or some technology forever, but was just at the wrong place and wrong time to be successful with it.
The VR field has many of these people floating around all pissed off that Palmer Luckey got the glory.
Both people followed their passions, being "successful" just happened to line up for one of them instead of the others.
The reason "follow your passion" is awful advice is because there is no way for an individual to really predict what is going to be a sustainable way to live and most "obsessives" end up only marginally contributing to whatever their field is because the timing is wrong. This pattern seems to hold everywhere, sports, comedy, physics, economics etc...
However I can't think of one example of someone who was wildly successful who was not obsessed or "passionate" about what they were doing. Whether or not you accidentally find it or deliberately seems to be irrelevant.
I for one would like someone to describe how you know if you're passionate/obsessed with something - cause I know for myself I can get obsessed about many different things.
A different way to say it is that, people who make big impacts on the world are obsessed with the right problem at the right place, and the right time.
We all know the crank who has been obsessed with some problem or some technology forever, but was just at the wrong place and wrong time to be successful with it.
The VR field has many of these people floating around all pissed off that Palmer Luckey got the glory.
Both people followed their passions, being "successful" just happened to line up for one of them instead of the others.
The reason "follow your passion" is awful advice is because there is no way for an individual to really predict what is going to be a sustainable way to live and most "obsessives" end up only marginally contributing to whatever their field is because the timing is wrong. This pattern seems to hold everywhere, sports, comedy, physics, economics etc...
However I can't think of one example of someone who was wildly successful who was not obsessed or "passionate" about what they were doing. Whether or not you accidentally find it or deliberately seems to be irrelevant.
I for one would like someone to describe how you know if you're passionate/obsessed with something - cause I know for myself I can get obsessed about many different things.