The objection goes something like the following. Notice anything odd?
Jun seems to find the whole ‘follow your passion’ type lifestyle appealing, but he worries about the future and wonders how he will be able to afford a house and a wedding, how he will be able to look after his family financially and how he will put his kids through school if he spends his life chasing his passion. He wonders whether quitting a lucrative job to chase a dream is the responsible thing to do or if by doing this he’s turning his back on his responsibilities.”¹
Following his passion isn’t the issue. Having a job that doesn’t make enough money is what he’s concerned about – because it’d be neglecting his familial responsibilities if he didn’t. I would guess that his volunteering for a nonprofit (whether or not he liked the work) would come under the same criticism.
The shadowy premise is that one’s passion won’t make enough money to support a family.
To say it another way, the premise is that people don’t pay for stuff that other people are excited to do or to produce (see previous post). Therefore, pursuing one’s passion shirks responsibility.
It’s like the vegetable equivalent of employment: if it tastes good, it’s bad for you. If it’s exciting, it’s bad for your wallet.
Just in case you’re not satisfied that Jun isn’t actually concerned about passion, consider this: doctors, scientists, skilled tradesmen, and professors all tend to be following their passion…and happen to have lucrative careers. It’s like healthy candy.
But it’s not just about financial responsibility. We also tend to think of those rich execs who only see their kids on major holidays as pretty selfish too. Actually raising one’s kids along with caring for one’s spouse is also part of familial responsibility.
A second assumption is that going the traditional route is inherently much safer and much more stable.
As in, it’s not likely that you’ll loose your job. I don’t have stats on how many passion-followers stick with it since they aren’t all easily definable; they aren’t all entrepreneurs.
But if we excluded all aforementioned careers (like doctors) and pretended that they all were entrepreneurs then in five years 50 percent would fail. There would be another culling at the 10 year mark and failure would rise to over 70 percent.
But consider this:
In 2017 over 3,000,000 people were fired or laid off in America which is much lower than in past years, by the way. So you have about a 1/100 chance of losing your job and about a 1/16,000 chance of losing your life in a car wreck while driving to and from work in an average state. Meaning that your drive is more stable than your career.
Besides all that, plenty of people leave their jobs of their own volition. Average tenure in 2016…
– Management occupations (6.3 years)
– Architecture and engineering (5.5 years)
– Legal (5.5 years)
– Service occupations (generally younger people) (2.9 years)
– Food service workers (1.9 years)
Looks like you might be leaving your company whether or not you started it.
So as far as this point is concerned, as long as your passion doesn’t shirk genuine responsibilities, it isn’t selfish. One might even argue (as one Quora member did) that “It’s selfish of your family to ask you to sacrifice your dreams to mitigate their fears.”
But I’d like to see a family compromise. After all, how much job security is enough? How much money is enough?
BUT ISN’T THE MERE PREMISE “MY PASSION” SELFISH BECAUSE IT’S ALL ABOUT ME?
I like it that people would ask this question because it assumes you were born for a higher purpose – something external to yourself. I completely agree. Still…
We don’t really ask this question about basic stuff. Maybe I’m just in the wrong circles, but I’ve never heard anyone question whether or not it’s selfish to order their favorite flavor of ice-cream. People don’t opt for bubble gum ice-cream over Rocky Road in order to prove their virtue.
Sure, being all about yourself is selfish…it’s also called narcissism. Doing things you enjoy such as going to restaurants you like and wearing shoes that fit your feet aren’t usually thought of as narcissistic.
Jobs aren’t ice cream, of course. But say that Joe Career was in a dilemma between two jobs. All things were equal between the two – same pay, same benefits etc. – except that one energized him while the other made him question why he bothered to wake up. Choosing the former wouldn’t be selfish. It’d be as natural and ordinary as choosing chocolate ice cream over bubble gum. Seriously, who puts gum in ice cream?
But say that our man chooses the ho-hum job like Jim Carrey’s dad did. Yay, parents are relieved. Now he’s safe from selfishness! Instead, he’s controlled by…fear? Maybe fear of other people’s opinions or of failure or of “not having as much as everyone else.” Which means that he’s potentially letting the subjective opinions of others dictate his life or is attempting to protect himself from embarrassment or is swallowing weak definitions of success. Wow, what a sacrifice that is for the greater good. No self preservation there.
Weirdly, I haven’t heard a debate about whether entrepreneurial-ship is selfish. Maybe because it sounds harder than following that thing you really like to do. I mean, just figuring out how to spell it was hard; took me like a month.
Seriously though, try googling something like “is following your passion selfish?” and then google “Is entrepreneurial-ship selfish?” The results of the former show things like “how to follow your passion without being selfish.” Any guesses on the results for the latter? It’s pretty much all articles that justify selfishness i.e. “successful entrepreneurs need to be selfish sometimes.” Interesting because those two categories overlap quite a bit. I’d say that most entrepreneurs are following their passion though not everyone following their passion is an entrepreneur.
To wrap this point up, Yes, being all about yourself is in fact selfish.² But you can do that no matter what type of job you get. Following your passion isn’t inherently selfish. See next and final point.
IT MATTERS WHAT YOU’RE PASSIONATE ABOUT
Not to be subversive here but what if your passion is to end some awful disease? Then it must be right because helping people physically is good. But what if your passion is to run the playboy mansion? Well, then it must be wrong because making people into sex toys is bad.³
Intrinsically “following your passion” isn’t wrong. If it were than everyone would need to stop having fun and start doing what makes them depressed immediately.
Being excited about something isn’t bad. Being excited about bad stuff is bad.
As a side note, very few things are inherently wrong (e.g. idolatry). Life takes discernment.
- Killing is wrong when it’s murder but killing a murderer is right (via lawful execution, of course).
- Sex is immoral outside of marriage but explicitly moral inside of it.
- Knocking a guy down is bad; knocking him down because he’s trying to abduct your kid – or even because you’re keeping the guy from being hit by a passing bus – is either a parental duty or a downright neighborly thing to do.
So it all depends on what your passion is, if you even know.
Now that I’ve done my best to kick over the idea that following your passion is intrinsically selfish, it’s only fair to pick out the valuable bits of that objection from the rubble.
And here comes the revival: letting excitement for a good thing eclipse excitement for the best thing is bad. Just read Jane Eyre… or drop by the office early and catch what I have to say about it.
Bare with me here, but why would people think that it’s selfish to do what you like (assuming what you like isn’t immoral)? Well, because that’s often the context – like when it interferes with what you ought to be doing. If the dishes need to be done and you run off to play soccer with the fellas, leaving all the work on your wife, that’s selfish. Bad spouse. But if we switch scenarios so that the only responsibility at the moment is to win bread and bring home bacon and playing soccer wins that bacon, then playing soccer isn’t getting in the way of better things. It’s a job. At least wash the dishes before running out to play.
Still, it’s pretty easy to think poorly of NFL players even while we are quietly jealous of them. Sometimes I wonder if some of the criticism doesn’t have a tinge of envy. I mean, if you spent 30 years busting your tail in a job you disliked, it’s kinda hard to be happy for someone who makes just as much chasing a ball or producing YouTube videos.
Before we youngans feel too justified, let’s jump back to that “ought to” part. When what you feel like doing interferes with what you ought to be doing, something is wrong. I’m not trying to exchange “passion” for “ought to” here and leave you as confused and guilty as ever.
So here are a few guideposts: if you’re going to do what you’re passionate about, at least make sure that (1) you aren’t shirking other responsibilities to do it and (2) that it isn’t morally wrong. And if you’re going to do something boring that you hate, same thing applies.
- You can find the article this was taken from here
- Surprise surprise
- This may shock the big media companies who praised Huge Hefner as a hero.