Passion is Overrated

By Laura Sanicola 

During my final months of high school, I fell victim to a fairly common existential crisis. I had received considerably high marks in almost every class I took (we’ll meet again, geometry) and played two instruments and one varsity sport. I held internships, taught Sunday School, partook in honors societies and sang at Radio City Music Hall. I never left school earlier than 5 p.m. and more commonly stayed until 7 or 8 p.m. When it came time to pick a college major, I was sure that one of my experiences would speak to me and guide my reasoning.

Yet, nothing did.

And that’s not uncommon, either. Society often tells students that we need to find our passion to follow our dreams, assuming that there are pre-existing passions in the world that are waiting to be discovered. This was the case for some of my friends who matriculated at music schools and those who braved demanding pre-med curriculums. These people can hardly imagine spending their lives doing anything else but what they were born to do. For me, however, the advice to find my passion was utterly useless. I couldn’t envision myself doing any one occupation in the next five years. Having the liberty to explore many potentially exciting career paths should have excited me, but instead I felt overwhelmed and disheartened. Why don’t I feel strongly about anything? Could it be that I lack the capacity to be passionate?

The quest to find my passion has caused me a lot of unnecessary anxiety. Upon my high school graduation, I felt entirely unfulfilled, as if there was an important piece of my life that I had not yet discovered. I wanted to find a social cause or scientific inquiry to consume my thoughts and make my blood churn.

Samuel Joseph / The Ram

A passion is a reason to exist, and I needed one that would be unique, socially acceptable and potentially marketable. During my first year of college, I questioned everything that I spent my time on, wondering whether or not it was my true calling. It sort of felt like I was dating a lot of opportunities and looking for love, but always coming back empty-handed.

Little did I know that the answer to my existential question had been staring me in the face all along: I happily have been doing work that I was not particularly passionate about for my entire life. I don’t feel an overwhelming desire to become a physicist or a mathematician, but learning about those subjects and earning my grades in them left me wanting more. Even journalism, something that I spend countless hours a week pursuing, is not the motivating force that drives me. After pouring my heart and soul into my articles, I have come to love them because of the work that I put into them. I discovered that the fulfillment of interesting and meaningful work is what I craved all along, and that is not the product of passion. Interesting and meaningful work can occur simultaneously, but they can occur separately as well.

When I worked a variety of odd jobs over the summer, I reflected on the type of work that made me happy. As a deli clerk, I was able to meet people from many different backgrounds and develop relationships with my customers. I found happiness in daily conversations with my boss, in perfecting a complicated order and even in the satisfaction of making sure the drawer was not a penny over or under. While lifeguarding, I felt a sense of importance in opening the pool and running the operations. It is highly unlikely that I will keep either job as anything more than a part-time summer employment, but my experiences reaffirmed that I can enjoy working without feeling particularly passionate about it.

Finally coming to terms with being “dispassionate,” I decided to enter college and try out a psychology major. In retrospect, I could have majored in communications or music and have been content. I enjoy both of these subjects, but they would lead me to vastly different career paths, neither of which I have an obvious passion for.

However, after sticking with the workload and reaping the success of my hard work, I knew that I could eventually find fulfillment in anything to which I put my mind.