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What's your thought on finding passion?

10 points by saros ↗ HN
People always say, "Do something you love or feel enthusiastic about." I'm 20 years old and personally I don't feel anything like that. How does this "passion" work? How do you figure it out? Many people are working on what they love or feel genuine about. I feel envious towards them. For a while, I started feeling extreme depression, anxiety, and identity crisis. I don't know how to figure this out. I'm at a loss here and I feel extremely pathetic about this fact. Can anybody find their passion? Is it possible that I'm not capable of figuring this out?

17 comments

[ 1.6 ms ] story [ 44.8 ms ] thread
PaulHoule
Your passion finds you. If you are looking for it because someone told you to, you certainly won't find it.
saros
What if it doesn't find me. Am I supposed to carry on just how I used to do before, I tried that I can't handle it anymore
ThrowawayR2
Surely there's something in life you enjoy doing? Even if it's just drinking beer, that can lead to a career in brewing.
saros
That's the worst part when I started questioning myself I don't really enjoy anything. I feel like an empty shell
tayo42
Are you actually depressed? If so, that's a start
alexmingoia
You don’t have to have a passion. It may be more helpful to understand “do what you love” to mean “don’t spend your time doing something you hate or living for other people”.
saros
I don't know how to live for myself, Idk what makes me happy and sad
mabil
Try things out as much as you can, and once you're good at something, that will "become" your passion or one of them, we tend to stick to things that we are good at. Also don't be too hard on yourself, you're 20, you can't possibly have exhausted all the existing possibilities.

You only know what you know, so revisiting old things that you have tried, might also be a good approach as it takes time to develop the "taste/understanding" of a subject, sometimes researching "the best" of something and jumping straight there, you might not like it[1].

You might have learned from another field something that will change your perspective about a previous topic that you can put a spin on it; but again this is after you have understood "enough" rules so you can break them.

Picking something that is too challenging you might give up, and something that is not challenging enough, you might also give up, so pick something relatively challenging, but with a good headroom for you to keep exploring as you grow.

I used to jump from one "project" to another, so never finished anything, I decided now to prioritise 1 thing, and 1 thing only, it might take 5/10 years of my life, but what I decided was whatever I picked, I would exhaust "all" possibilities before "giving up", and my 1 thing is not giving up of it, and after a while I am actually enjoying. ---

[1] from "Homo Deus" by Yuval Noah Harari p. 239-240.

    Experiences and sensitivity build up one another in a never-ending cycle. I cannot experience anything if I have no sensitivity, and i cannot develop sensitivity unless I undergo a variety of experiences. Sensitivity is not an abstract aptitude that can be developed by reading books or listening to lectures. It is a practical skill that can ripen and mature only by applying it in practice.

    Take tea, for example. I start by drinking very sweet ordinary tea while reading the morning paper. The tea is little more than an excuse for a sugar rush. One day I realize that between the sugar and the newspaper, I hardly taste the tea at all. So I reduce the amount of sugar, put the paper aside, close my eyes and focus on the tea itself. I begin to register its unique aroma and flavor. Soon I find myself experimenting with different teas, black and green, comparing their exquisite tangs and delicate bouquets. Within a few months, I drop the supermarket labels and buy my tea at Harrods. I develop a particular liking for 'Panda Dung tea' from the mountains of Yu'an in Sichuan province, made from the leaves of tea bushes fertilized by the dung of panda bears. That's how, one cup at a time, I hone my tea sensitivity and become a tea connoisseur. If in my early tea drinking days you had served me Panda Dung tea in Ming Dynasty porcelain goblet, I would have not appreciated it any more than builder's tea in a paper cup. You cannot experience something if you don't have the necessary sensitivity and you cannot develop your sensitivity except by undergoing a long string of experiences.
Good luck, and if you remember, let us know how it goes! =]
takotab
Please read the book of Cal Newport “So good they can’t ignore you” an excellent book about finding satisfaction in one’s career. He exactly addresses this question about following you’re passion.
josephferano
I read this book. I second this recommendation. Really helped shift my mentality into something that has allowed me to be more productive.
t-3
It takes time. Don't try to find passion in your employment - that's just to pay the bills. You'll find many different things to be interested in and passionate about as life goes on, and you'll grow disinterested and lose passion as well. Don't worry too much about the Hollywood script of what life is supposed to be like.

Most of those people that talk about 'finding passion' and 'doing what you love' are just spouting platitudes. Very few people are actually living anything close to their ideal lives. Find a job that's comfortable physically, mentally, and financially, relationships that are honest and fulfilling, and explore new areas whenever you find yourself needing something to occupy your time. It's OK if you never fall in love or find the true meaning of your life.

sexy_panda
If you're suffering in your current mental state, go see a therapist.

Depression makes you feel like this. Trying to find a way out of it by trying to find new and fun things, can be devastating to your current situation as depression will keep you from feeling good and new experiences, even if you may actually enjoy them when you're not depressed, just are not fun.

The 20s are usually not the fun part of life. You don't really know who you are and you don't really know what to do with your life and you may have trauma, that you first need to heal from.

This is normal and a lot of people suffer from it. Don't feel invalidated.

You are good, just as you are.

Now go see a therapist.

muzani
My definition for passion is something you need to do, despite having reason not to do it. It's the itch you have to scratch. It comes from the word pati/passio = to suffer.

Passionate people suffer when they don't do the work, so they end up going through the pain of doing it anyway. These people wake up at 5 and do the work, because they just can't do anything else.

I think the trick is finding something you're curious about.

Curiosity comes from being open to different outcomes. When you take something seriously (including finding passion), you're forcing a specific outcome. I'm passionate about cooking. If you give me a steak, I will look for the effect of specific cuts. Can I make a great steak from cheap cuts? Does it taste better with butter and garlic? What can I marinade steak in? Does baking soda make steak more tender? If drier steaks are better, would freeze drying a steak make it better?

Someone who is serious about cooking steaks will only look for the best possible outcome, and probably try to imitate the best recipe and such. There's techniques to arouse curiosity. Meditation has several, but there's also something like Pirsig's Brick.

The other step is commitment. It's tough for a 20 year old. Back then, I did lots of stuff: AI, VR, robotic exoskeletons, solar cars, voice processing, cryptography. Wasn't willing to commit to anything, and somehow got less done than people who committed to something. Until I took a job and was forced to commit to web and mobile development.

Commitment also requires a kind of death of an identity. By committing myself to mobile dev, I'm also committing to not becoming a game developer or an electrical engineer. I get rid of the distractions, and have more headroom to master a certain niche.

badpun
Let me quote my reply to a similar question from yesterday:

> I think this is mostly bullshit, peddled by unique people like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk [1]. It does not apply to 99% of population. For regular people, job is a source of money, so that you can have a life. Of course you will have "a bad time" doing it - a job is literally trading effort and discomfort for money. The dream that, if you only find your passion, the work will be fun and not taxing or uncomfortable, is just that - a dream that you can escape the human condition.

> The most common sense advice is to find a job that you can tolerate (or even somewhat like on a good day) and that pays well. That's what our parents always say (at least the non-US parents) and it's not because they're stupid - I think it's hard-won wisdom that comes with age.

> [1] Unique in the way that they are hardcore workaholics and work is almost everything for them. Most regular people are very far from that.

jonesjoneses
Ask your grandparents this question and they'll laugh in your face. Passion-for-the-masses is a 21st century invention. Just live your life, do what you want, when you want. Do not worry about having a so-called passion no more than you should worry about not having a unicorn as a pet.
markus_zhang
I think a more valid question is how someone can focus something for 30 years while most people cannot do that. This definitely cannot be explained by IQ, initial curiosity and others. Some people can tolerate this perseverance but others cannot.
matt_s
Passion (and motivation) can be fleeting. Find some career/job that has elements of the work that you like. Every job is going to have stuff that people don't want to do. Being a professional means slogging through times where you just don't want to do the work, it happens.

I like solving problems with computers and programming. Am I passionate about the apps I work on? Meh. I am passionate about solving problems though with the tools and experience I have. I find it fun.

You're 20 so my advice is find something you like and pays the bills and get some experience on different things. I think passion is more something you discover on your journey through life and not something you can figure out like a math problem.