Passion or career? If you don’t want to waste the five years you spent learning a field you ended up not liking, you have over ten years ahead of you. It is better to waste five years than ten years!
Passion vs. career? I chose passion. I didn’t follow the law. Why didn’t I follow the law? And what do I mean by not following the law?
Actually, I think choosing between passion and career doesn’t need to cause us headaches. Sometimes, we can make a career out of passion!
That was what I did. However, society expects us to have a career aligned with our educational attainment. Or to work in a non-creative field.
That is where I failed. If you are torn between passion or career, or a real job and an emotionally fulfilling venture, I learned these:
- You could be one leap of faith away from the life you dream of.
- You will not see results in the beginning, but you just began!
- The creative life may make you poor, but it is better than the lives of those who work a job they dislike.
- Worry about the years you are wasting, not those you will have wasted.
Let’s begin.
Passion vs. Career: Should You Choose Passion or Career?
Firstly, what do I mean by not following the law? I finished a pre-law bachelor’s degree, but I changed my direction and chose to be in the creative field.
College is expensive. A bachelor’s degree takes four years. I wasted so much! But then, I have over ten years ahead of me. I don’t want to waste my future.
So, before I pursued my passion, I wanted to be better than anyone else.
I wanted to have more achievements than others, be more powerful than others, and be seen as better than others in a lot of aspects.
I was egotistic. I was trapped in the material side of life, so what I wanted was connected to how others would perceive me, treat me, and feel around me.
I wanted them to think of me as someone superior to them.
Harvard Business Review says if you are too focused on materialistic pursuits, you will never be satisfied. It gives only temporary happiness.
But I wasn’t stepping on other people’s toes. My dark desires were things only I knew, and I made moves quietly but without being unethical.
I wanted to be better than certain people, but I didn’t want them to know that.
It was just in 2018 that I had my realization: “I am just like everyone else, and I am not as special as I think I am.”
That happened when I couldn’t get a job for almost a year even though I was qualified from my perspective. I was the human version of their checklists.
That experience humbled me. Materialistic pursuits became less important. This blog wouldn’t have existed if I had cared about money!
I also started to think that everything happens for a reason, especially when my dream job landed in my lap out of the blue.
I received a job offer in 2019 after months of being unemployed, and it was a writer position. It opened the door to the creative field.
Years later, I am here. When I was caught in the passion vs. career battle, I had worries. I knew I wanted to be a writer, but what if I became like them?
Them: the writers who seem to have forgotten to take care of themselves because they have 50,000+ more words to write. And I am sometimes like them!
But I love it. I love what I do. I am glad I chose passion over career. Or that I was able to make a career out of passion. What about you?
Let the battle between passion vs. career begin!
1. You could be one leap of faith away from the life you dreamed of.
When I decided to go all-in on my projects, I had a full-time job, which I don’t consider a job because I was not getting paid.
I got paid in the first few months, but it stopped. From that day until the day I quit, I simply helped him with his project for free full-time.
Looking back, I was taken advantage of.
I did freelance work because I needed money, but I was earning less than I needed. At the time, I was the one paying the majority of the bills.
I didn’t ask my family to help me out even though I had no stable source of income. I was ashamed to tell them about my financial situation.
If you are always broke and sick of it, wikiHow was a guide on how to stop being broke because it can be resolved!
I strictly controlled my expenses to get by, and then cried in secret.
Months later, when my passion projects were quite established, I started getting job offers, both freelance and full-time.
I struggled in the beginning because I came from a mentally and financially taxing situation. I questioned whether I made the right choice.
But I am happy that between passion vs. career, I chose passion. Where I am now is better than where I was before I took a leap of faith.
2. You will not see results in the beginning, but you just began!
I am the only person working on my projects, and I struggled in the beginning. Why? Because I didn’t know if I could achieve something.
I was also depressed at the time. I had 0 belief in myself.
But the self-doubt didn’t last long. After 4 months of blogging, some blog posts ranked on Google’s front page for certain search queries.
According to Ahrefs, it takes over a year for a newly published page to be in the Top 10 of search results. But it is possible to achieve that in 2 to 6 months if you work hard or you are an SEO expert!
I was soooo happy because it was unexpected. It boosted my confidence. I beat other blogs, even those based in the first world. I could do more great things!
If you can’t choose between passion or career because of your fear of failure, don’t expect and take the pressure off of your shoulders.
You will not see results in the beginning, but keep moving forward and it will appear in front of you. *poof* You will be surprised!
3. The creative life may make you poor, but it is better than the lives of those who work a job they dislike.
Should you pursue a passion or career? One thing that stops people from choosing their passions is the financial issues associated with it.
Passion = broke. You will not be heartbroken if you follow your dreams, but you will be broke because there is no money in passion.
Many people’s goal is simply to survive. There is nothing wrong with that. Not all have the privilege to live with no worries.
Talkspace says that staying at a job you hate can result in mental health issues such as stress, burnout, anxiety, and even depression.
They work jobs they criticize when they clock out. They are stressed out in the morning, and they can’t even rest properly at night.
I worked an office job after college, and the only days I loved were the paydays!
Yes, as a creative, the income flow is unpredictable. Sometimes, it doesn’t even flow. But I can explore and travel the world, and work as I do that.
If I could go back to that moment when I was deciding whether to choose passion or career, I would still choose passion!
4. Worry about the years you are wasting, not those you will have wasted.
If you can’t decide whether to choose passion or career because you don’t want to waste your college degree, or whatever you did in the past, well…
I spent 4 years in college learning politics, government, and laws.
If I had been reluctant to pursue a career in the creative field because of my educational background, I wouldn’t have been this happy and free.
I was in college for 4 years. Those 4 years were fewer compared to the years ahead of me. I am 27 but I might be scheduled to die at 40.
40 is quite an early age to die. Still, I have 13 more years to do what I want!
Based on the data by the World Health Organization, the average life expectancy across the world was 73.4 in 2019.
If you are young, don’t hold back on changing directions. It is better to waste 5 years than spend the rest of your 20 years with what-ifs.
A better life is one decision away.
If you don’t want to get stuck in a life that frustrates you, you can get out of that by simply deciding to take a different path.
Last Words
If you fear change and don’t want to step out of your comfort zone, you will have a lot of regrets in the future. Lots of “I should have done that”!
I was once like you, and every time I look back on the past, I can’t help but feel sad. I could’ve made my past better if I hadn’t let my fear overcome me.
Believe me. That fear that stops you from making a life-changing decision will disappear the moment you do that thing you are fearful of.
Passion or career? Make a career out of your passion!
If you enjoyed reading my take on whether to choose passion or career, here is a video of me talking about how you could *not* choose between passion or career:
