“Will I Ever Find My Passion?” 9 questions that may unearth yours

I have a client who’s an engineer and feels he’s just going through the motions, afraid  that his career will always be humdrum. He asked, “Is there any chance that at my age, I’ll find my passion and make a living at it?”  My Psychology Today article today offers nine questions that may unearth your career passion.

A Writer: A short-short story about doing what you love.

It was his second year of teaching kindergarten, his first in a new school. He remembered last year’s first day: Twenty 5-year-olds, most bounding, a few slinking. "So much energy, so many needs. They didn’t train me for this in ed school.”

But it worked out well enough that he was looking forward to his second year, even though it was in a grittier school.

It was Sep 3, 1985, two days before the first day of school. He walked into the classroom where he’d be teaching kindergarten. And there was an orchard of Apple 2e computers. He wouldn’t have expected that his first encounter with The Computer would be in a kindergarten but that was fortunate. A bit technophobic, it was reassuring to think, “If kindergartners can use it, maybe I can.” On one desk, he spotted a software box :“Bank Street Writer.” The blurb explained that it was a children’s “word-processing program” that enables users to erase, insert, and move text far more easily than on a typewriter—No white-out, no need to retype pages.

By nature, motivated by speed, such time-saving drove him to sit at the computer instead of, for example, hanging posters about animals, colors, and the alphabet. Following the software’s instruction booklet, he put the floppy disk into the drive whereupon the screen made clear where you type and how you erase, insert, cut, and paste. That evening, he bought an Apple 2e and a copy of Bank Street Writer, and thus his addiction to writing began.

Confidently, perhaps hubristically, he thought, “If word processing makes writing this easy, why don’t I go all the way and use it to write a book?" And indeed, his first book, “What I Learned From My Kindergartners” was written on that children’s word processor and sold for a $5,000 advance to a family-run publisher.

Over the next 20 years, he made enough from his articles and two books to legitimately call his writing a sideline. At that point, with 20 years in as a public school teacher, he was eligible to take early retirement with one of those generous pensions that school teachers are among the few to still get. “Thank you union. Thank you taxpayer.”

While he’d get additional money for additional years, the golden handcuffs now felt looser, indeed escapable. He felt he still did a decent job of teaching but wasn’t quite as patient nor as inspired to create compelling lessons that met the needs of his classes' ever wider range of students. “Should I quit and become a full-time writer? A fresher teacher might do a better job. I tried changing grades but that didn’t really solve. I might feel more satisfied if I were writing full time instead of blowing 20 kids’ noses and teaching diphthongs, digraphs, and pre-geometry. But there’s a reason the words ‘starving' and 'writer’ so often adjoin. And very few writers get full benefits and a pension.”

In the end, the slogan, “Do what you love and the money will follow” prevailed. Alas, his timing was terrible. Although his writing productivity and reputation grew, his income from writing was flat and eventually flatlined. The rise of citizen journalists, pirated book downloads, and declining newspaper ad revenues thanks to Craigslist’s free ads—slowly morphed his writing sideline into a writing hobby. The final nail was when the Huffington Post gave him an ultimatum, “The world has changed.  A million people would kill to write for us. The pay is zero. Take it or leave it.” So that sanctimonious publication, frequently railing against capitalism, was using one of capitalism’s darker aspects to save a pittance so Arianna Huffington could get even richer.

He continued writing even though it was without pay. That was because he could now write what he wanted and if a publisher didn’t want his work, he’d post the articles on his blog and self-publish books on Amazon. That freedom spawned contrarian work unpublishable in today’s censorious publishing world.

But after two years of seeing his savings decline and, at age 50, envisioning needing to support himself for another 30+ years, he took the additional courses now required to reinstate his teaching license. And on September 5, 2017, he opened the door to Room 112 at Jefferson Elementary School and sat at his desk contemplating the next 20 years of 20 five-year-olds, bright-eyed with anticipation of school’s wonders.

A Case Against Following Your Passion: My first weekly contribution to Time.com

I'm now writing one or two articles a week for Time.com's Ideas section.


Here is my first contribution. The title is more unequivocal than I believe appropriate but Time's editor chooses the titles and I didn't want to start off my relationship with her by complaining about it. Sorry if its hyperbole offends: Why Following Your Passion Is the Worst Kind of Career Advice.

For You, Will That "Dream" Job or Career be a Dream or Nightmare?

Sometimes a dream job or career doesn't live to expectations. It may even turn out to be a nightmare. 

My PsychologyToday.com article today offers tips on how to assess how happy you're likely to be in your "dream" job or career. HERE is the link.

My PsychologyToday.com Articles with 2,000+ Facebook Likes

6/9/14 Update: Here's another one:
My article, Becoming a Better Listener has 6,400 Facebook Likes. And the total page views for my PsychologyToday.com articles is now 468,000.

I've been gratified by the response to my articles on PsychologyToday.com. I've only been writing for it for six weeks and the audience has built rapidly: 168,700 page views in the past week alone. 

If you haven't seen my articles, you might want to see if any interest you. These might especially be worth a look: Each has already received more than 2,000 Facebook Likes:

Can Anyone Figure Out What Makes Us Tick? (2,400 Facebook Likes)

How Would You Rate Your Life? (3,500 Facebook Likes) 

Why Following Your Passion Can Backfire (3,800 Facebook Likes)

6 Secrets to Making the Most of Your Time (5,700 Facebook Likes)

How Can You Tell Who to Trust (10,000 Facebook Likes)

What To Do When You're Being Ignored. (10,000 Facebook Likes.)

Do What You Love? Risky

My PsychologyToday.com article today is; Do What You Love? Risky.  There may be a more likely path to contentment.

Days of Our Work Lives: An unvarnished look at work today: Part I: David's Saga. Episode 11: Data Analyst as Hero

Days of Our Work Lives

Part I: David's Saga

Episode 11

Data Analyst as Hero

In the previous episode, while recovering from his second heart attack, David decided he wanted to abandon underwear marketing in favor of a non-profit career. And after volunteering at Physicians for a National Health Program, he was offered a job there--although at half what was earning as a marketer. He just had to convince his wife Susan.

And he was scared to try. After all, before heart attack 2, Susan had still been urging him to "just get another marketing job. Trying to change careers will mean a big pay cut. We can't afford that."

But to his surprise, Susan needed no convincing. Whether because of love, guilt, self-interest, or some combination, David's second heart attack made Susan realize that lest she become one of the 6+ widows for every widower (and early,) she shouldn't force the husband she claims to love to do very-full-time work he hates and finds exhausting. She shouldn't push him back into the yoke, back to being a beast of burden.

So without a mote of observable resistance, Susan said, "Of course, David. I'll support whatever you choose to do."

David knew it was a mercy pass, like when someone sleeps with a person s/he feels sorry for. But that wasn't going to stop him, so he gratefully accepted both her get-out-of-jail-free card and the job as a data analyst for Physicians for a National Health Program.

Although he now worked longer hours than as an underwear marketer, using every IQ point to find nuggets supporting single-payer health amid the mountains of data, he hardly noticed the time and came home night after night no worse than pleasantly tired.

And just six months later, all his hard work paid off. He submitted a white paper to his boss showing, convincingly, that the nation's health--from rich people to poor ones--would be better under a single-payer health plan. And with the insurance companies out of the picture, the cost would be lower. His boss was ecstatic, immediately gave David's white paper to the lobbyists, who in turn used it as the core of their presentations to key members of Congress. And just one year later---a blink-of-the-eye in government time--a single-payer health plan passed both houses of Congress and President Hillary Clinton eagerly signed it.

So David, an obscure data nerd, played a key role in revolutionizing health care in the United States of America.

His boss doubled his salary so he was now making what he had as an underwear marketer but doing work he considered vital. Next, David turned his data-analytic skills to figuring out the best ways to implement single-payer health care. All was right with his world, at least with his work world.

The next episode is HERE.

Follow Your Passion? Bah Humbug!

If career counselors had a motto, it would be "Follow your passion." Alas, truth is, in choosing a career, if you do what you love, poverty usually follows.

That's because most people's passions are in just a few areas so 10 zillion people apply for each good job.

And because of that, most employers pay poorly for most such cool careers and treat you poorly knowing there are 10,000 wannabes champing for the opportunity to be treated poorly.

My USNews.com piece today, Bah, Passion is the first in my weekly "Bah..." series in which I reveal my inner Scrooge and offer straight talk about career issues.

A "Workaholic" in Action

It's been a busy few days. On top of my usual full docket of career counseling clients, writing my weekly AOL article and weekly USNews.com article, giving a talk to 100 people at Experience Unlimited, and responding to tons of email, I was on five radio shows, mainly questioning whether work-life balance is a goal we all should strive for.

Indeed work-life-balance activists would label me "out of balance" and a "workaholic," evoking comparison to "alcoholic," addicted to something bad.

In fact, it's all been inordinately energizing. And amid it all, I found time to garden, play the piano, hike every day with my doggie Einstein, help my 88-year-old mom, and hang out with my wife. I will admit I didn't spend any time watching TV, playing golf, etc.

In case you'd like to listen, here are the radio shows I've been on since Sunday:

Of course, I was on my own show (NPR-San Francisco) which I devoted to raising questions about three career "truths."

KGO's (ABC-San Francisco) Ronn Owens Program is among the most listened-to on the West Coast. Talkers magazine named Ronn Owens one of the 25 Greatest Talk Show Hosts of All Time. Monday, I appeared on his show for about my 100th time. The interview was an hour long and covered such topics as: When it is and isn't wise to follow your passion, the pros and cons of for-profit vs. non profit careers, and colleges that still are accepting applications for the fall. HERE is the link.

Also, on Monday, I was on WHYY (NPR-Philadelphia) for an hour questioning whether work-life balance is a goal all people should strive for. I argued that, for example, the clerk who spends workweek hours 40-50 ensuring that everyone is paid promptly should not be denigrated as a workaholic but praised as a hard worker or even a hero. I also explained why shorter hours may not address the real reason people are stressed at work. HERE is an excerpt.

Today, I was on the CBC (Canada's NPR) for an hour, also talking about the whether we are too universally extolling work-life balance and unfairly labeling hard workers with the term "workaholic." The host pretty much took the other side. I leave it to you to decide if I held my own.  HERE is the link to that hour.

And as I mentioned in the previous post, today I offered very basic job-search advice to teens on NPR's Marketplace HERE is the link.

I hope you find these audio recordings useful and maybe even vaguely entertaining.

Eight Career "Truths" That May Not Be So True

In preparation for my University of California, Berkeley Extension Public Lecture this Wednesday, I wrote a draft of what I plan to say.

HERE is the link. I'd welcome your reactions.

Also, it is a public event, so you are invited. The event is free but you're required to register.

Should You Follow Your Passion as Your Career?

This is the fifth in a series of five posts, each of which distills one of the presentations I made at the Commonwealth Club this month.

Many of us have deliberated whether to do our passion as our career or as a hobby. Most often, it's some creative activity: writing, performing, creating visual art, fashion but also could be environmentalism, journalism, etc.

The commonality across all of those is that they are popular passions and so supply and demand means that only a small percentage of wannabes will earn enough money doing their passion to even pay back their student loans, let alone to make a sustainable income.

But one size doesn't fit all. Should you pursue your passion as your main career? Or should you relegate it to hobby or sideline status? Perhaps these questions will help you gain some clarity:

1. If you pursued your passion as a sideline or hobby instead of as your main career, you'd be:

a) dissatisfied (30 points) 

b) somewhat satisfied (12 points)  

c) satisfied (6 points)  

d) very satisfied (0 points)  

2. If you pursued something other than your passion as your main career, what would you likely earn per year?

a) Less than $20,000 (15 points)

b) $20,000-50,000  10 points) 

c) $50,000-$75,000  (6 points) 

d) $75,000-$100,000 (3 points) 

e) More than $100,000  (0 points)

3. In the past year, how much have you earned from doing that thing you're passionate about:

a) More than $75,000 (15 points) 

b) $50-75,000  (12 points)

c) $25,000-50,000 (8 points) 

d) $5,000-25,000 (4 points)  

e) less than $5,000 (0 points)

4) Which best describes the feedback you've received from people with the power to pay you to do your passion:

a) A person(s) would definitely pay you a good-enough annual amount to do what you're passionate about (25 points)

b) A person(s) would likely pay you a good-enough annual amount to do what you're passionate about (15 points)

c) A person(s) would possibly pay you a good-enough annual amount to do what you're passionate about (8 points)

d) No one with the power to hire you has said they might pay you a good-enough annual amount to do what you're passionate about (0 points)

5. What percentage of people stably earn at least a working-class annual income doing your passion? For example,  database programming would get 10 points, fiction writing would get 0 points.

a) More than 75% (15 points) 

b) 50-75% (12 points

c) 25-50% (6 points) 

d) 5-25% (3 points)

e) less than 5% (0 points)

SCORING: Add up your points  The closer your score to 100, the more likely you'd be wise to pursue your passion as your main career.

Passionate About Nothing?

A caller to my KGO show last night said something like, "I'm a trainer for a cable company and I like it fine. It's stable, it pays well, I'm good at it, and the people there like me, but I'm not passionate about it. Would you help me find a career I'm passionate about?"

Given that in his 3o or 40 years on earth, he'd not heretofore found a career passion, I asked if, rather than take the time and income risk of changing careers, would he be wiser to recognize that he's got a pretty good deal? Might he may be one of the many millions of people who would not find a career they're passionate about that also "pays well, I'm good at it, and the people there like me,'"?" And if so, should he focus on being grateful for his good if not passion-filled career and find additional gratification outside work, for example, by spending more time doing the things you like: a hobby, playing with his kids, volunteering, and so on.?"

He said, 'Absolutely. You figured me out precisely. Thank you."

We live in an era where "follow your passion" is widely viewed as unequivocably to be sought. Fact is, too often, if you do what you love, poverty will follow. Or you end up spending a life of discontent, waiting for Godot: searching for a career passion where, for you, none ever reveals itself.

Rather than accept "do what you love" as a universal postulate, I invite you to consider which goal, for you, offers a higher risk-reward ratio:
A) a career or job you're passionate about
B) a career or job that pays reasonably, is ethical, and in which you have a good boss and coworkers, and where you find additional juice outside of work.

My Last Lecture

A Carnegie Mellon professor, dying of cancer, gave this last lecture.

Here's the essence of what mine would be:

1. Get good at something and then work long hours at it. The extra work hours will be more rewarding to you and to the world than a round of golf, shopping with a friend, playing Monopoly with your family, or getting on a plane to go to your nephew's bar mitzvah.

2. Champion something that most people don't. I'm pro-choice, but so are zillions of other people. My efforts there would be a drop of water in an ocean. In contrast, today, no one seems to care about intellectually gifted kids, especially boys, in our public schools. When I champion their right to get an appropriate-leveled education I feel my efforts matter.

3. Do something very creative--as a hobby. Creative pursuits usually pay terribly. Doing your creative outlet as a hobby allows you to derive most of the pleasure without having to take a vow of poverty.

4. Be nice.

5. Never look back; always look forward. I asked my father why he never talks about the Holocaust. He said, "The Nazis took five years from my life. I won't give them one minute more. Martin, never look back; always look forward."