The common line of thinking is to pursue things you're passionate about. If you can just simply get paid to do something you're passionate about, you'll never have to work a day in your life, or so the thinking goes. The problem is this simply isn't true for most of us.
Because unless we're one of those rare people whose passion happens to be something we're highly skilled at, our passions will leave us unsatisfied every time. We don't enjoy careers because we're passionate about them. We enjoy careers because we do something we're good at, and this in and of itself gives us passion for the work.
Our brains like rewards. How do we give our brain rewards? By doing something we're good at. Because we're good at it, we're rewarded with recognition, money, status, and other social rewards. And those rewards reinforce the joy for the work.
Our passions aren't bad. They're very good in fact. But when we confuse our passions with a desire to earn a living from them, we remove our greatest asset for rewarding work - our own abilities and skills.
Pursue your passions. But pursue them without a bill or W2 attached to the output. Instead, do things you're good at. And do them long enough to become really really good at them. Your happiness, bank account, and ironically...passions, will thank you.
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