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Everyone says you need to 'follow your passion' but I think that's bad advice for most people
I hear this from career coaches all the time and it bugs me. I tried quitting my accounting job in 2019 to pursue photography full time up in Portland. After 18 months I was broke, stressed, and hated taking photos of strangers' weddings. Turns out my passion was better as a hobby. Now I'm back in numbers work and I save the camera for weekends. Has anyone else found that their 'dream job' actually made them miserable once it became the main gig?
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wells.reese7d ago
Wait, her neighbor actually did the bakery thing? That's wild because I've seen that exact same crash and burn happen to a few people I know. One guy I knew loved making furniture as a side thing, then opened a shop and six months later was selling all his tools on Craigslist. It's like once you have to show up for it every day and deal with customers and payroll and all the garbage that comes with running a business, the thing you loved just turns into another job. People really need to stop acting like having a boring job that pays the bills is some kind of failure.
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ninah107d ago
Oh man, this hits so hard. I've been noticing a pattern where people turn their side hobbies into this huge life-or-death career move and forget that sometimes the magic is in doing something because you want to, not because you have to. Like my neighbor who loved baking bread on weekends now runs a bakery and says she can't even look at a loaf without feeling sick. There's something about the pressure of paying bills with something you used to love that just kills the joy. It's like we've all been sold this idea that your job has to be your passion, but really, a stable job that lets you enjoy your hobbies on your own time is a pretty great gig too. Why do we act like that's settling?
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