Feb 18 - Sometimes Passion is Just Hard Work - Daily Drop #3

I think there’s sometimes a hidden rule in our culture that “passion should never feel like work”. If you love what you do, it should always feel great. And in some sense, I get that.

But that’s not been the full truth when it comes to my passions, for sure, and maybe I’m not alone.

For me, perusing my passion often is hard work, and also, living out my passion can, sometimes, just feel like work. I mean, even when a part of me doesn’t want to do it, I still know that it’s worth it. But, it still feels like work. Sure, pursuing my passion (like being a therapist) feels a lot less like work than another job that I’m not passionate about would, but yeah, it can still feel like work sometimes.

So there can be a thing called “the daily grind”. It can still be there, even when you’re pursuing your passion. For example, maybe you’re passion is fitness and physical exercise. Some days, maybe even some weeks, even though it’s your passion, you just don’t want to do it. It feels like a grind. Even though it’s the thing that you’re most passionate about in your life.

Passion can be hard work. I doesn’t always feel amazing.

This is important to remember, because if we believe our passion should always feel amazing, and then we encounter grindy weeks that don’t feel amazing, we might start to question if that’s really a passion for us at all. We might end up feeling we don’t have any true passions, because everything feels like work from time to time. That’s the danger of this idea that “pursuing your passion never feels like work”.

It can be helpful to just accept that sometimes it’s just going to feel meh.

That said, there still needs to be a line. Maybe what was once a passion is now a permanent grind with no joy or meaning at all anymore. Our passions can change, and we need to adapt with them. This might mean going for a new hobby, or even starting a new career.

Where that line is, though, is up to all of us, for sure. That said, though, a good thing to remember is that our passions can still feel like hard work sometimes, and that’s ok.

In The Comments:

But, what do you think? Do you have a passion? Does it ever feel like hard work? Does it always feel joyous?