The things you're passionate about in life and why you cannot do them.

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Recently I paid someone to teach me some skills and help me establish something similar to what they've built.

After explaining stuffs to me, I discovered I didn't really have passion for the skills they were supposed to teach me, but I stuck around anyway, because of the desperation that I need to get something up and running.

I've been reflecting on it all these while and I realize why a lot of people quit jobs they're not comfortable with or workplace that feels draining on their mental health.

The life we currently have in the 21st century makes jobs feels like too much, and that's because jobs are now being rewired to require too much from you.

Passion

A lot of people do not have passion for the jobs they're currently doing to earn money, they just see it as places to earn their living.

While I don't think this is wrong, I feel that no one can actually be even close to 90% productive and creative if they work in places where they're not even happy to work.

Most times this is because they're too scared to go broke so they are forced to do the job, or maybe the things they're passionate enough does not put food on the table.

Take a look at jobs like Microsoft, or places like Apple, or some multi billion dollar shell company in Switzerland, a lot of people working here are fulfilled, well paid and hits their threshold for creativity at every given step. So does this mean that money can driven motivation and hunger?

I think so, although not always.

Money as a motivational factor is really nice, it can make you love things you're naturally not interested in, and that's because of how easily money pays for the things that drives your passion.

Although this might not be the same for people who are already rich and established. For example the daughter of a rich man might not want to inherit the business empire left by her father, maybe she just wants to be a singer, an artist or someone who plays the violin.

While these passions are easily monetizable, she might not get to be as rich as inheriting her father's businesses. But I doubt she might care. I think the difference is that passion matters only to those that do not have money problems.

When people originally have money problems what they're passionate or not passionate about does not matter and even if they have to work in the nastiest places then they wouldn't have a choice because that's how they can pay their bills. Money limits what we want and what we shouldn't. Your choices do not matter when you cannot actually make them work.

When I was younger being a pencil artist was all I cared about, but I had to abandon what. At 19, I got my first paying job ever and I never looked back at being a pencil artist. It wouldn't have paid off anyway, at least not in the country I was.

The platform was not there, social media didn't exist, even though it was in its earliest form, it still didn't have enough impact to push it, so that was the end of it.

I had a friend who was passionate as I was, he also abandoned it and relocated to the United States, and for over 14 years he never came back. He's probably now working in a corporate setting, doing a job he might not be passionate about, but decent enough to pay his bills, or a job that he might not previously be passionate about but gone on to love some much because of the money it pays.

Master of your craft

I've also come to learn that passion can make you the most skilled person in your craft. When people fall in love with what they do, they're the best especially when that particular passion is highly sought after and greatly monetizable.

I have and know people who are highly talented in their craft, a few of them are well paid and maybe 30 to 40% aren't.

The truth is that if what you're passionate about is good enough and you're lucky enough to have a medium to earn from it, then you'll never have to work a day in your life, unfortunately this isn't the reality of over 90% of people in the world who are still struggling in their jobs and showing up only because they need the money