It's OK if You Don't Have a Single True Passion
16 Dec 2024 #misc
“Find your passion” has always stressed me out.
That advice assumes we all have a single true passion we can find within ourselves.
I’ve always had trouble finding that one true passion ever since high school. I got good grades in all subjects, with more effort in some than others. Picking one thing wasn’t easy based on grades alone.
I struggled to choose what to study at university. I had many ideas: joining the Military, studying Biology, or taking the Engineering route.
I’ve always had trouble finding one specific thing as a software engineer and solopreneur.
All that stress started to fade away when I realized it’s okay not to have one single true passion.
Embrace Your Multiple Passions
The first counter-advice to “find your passion” I found was by watching Emilie Wapnick’s TED talk “Why Some of Us Don’t Have One True Calling.”
She shares her story of having multiple interests and struggling to answer “What do you do for a living?”
This intrigued me to the point of devouring most of the articles on her website.
The main lesson from Emilie’s work is to embrace our multiple interests and passions. She even coined a term for that: being a multipotentialite.
Based on the quiz on her site, I discovered I’m a mixed-multipotentialite: someone who balances two passions at a time instead of many unfinished projects. This realization helped me connect the dots.
I bought the idea of embracing my interests. But my first question was, “How can multipotentialites make a living? Who needs or hires them?” All the advice I had heard was to find one passion, one thing, or one niche.
Emilie surveyed her community and found four ways to balance work as a multipotentialite:
- Einstein approach: A “boring” or “good enough” job pays the bills while you have something after hours. Einstein worked at the Patents Office while he started his Physics work.
- Slash approach: A two-job career. I’m a “software engineer/writer.”
- Group Hug approach: A multi-disciplinary job that allows you to combine your multiple passions or interests.
- Phoenix approach: A seasonal approach, changing careers to follow one of your passions per season.
Don’t run from your multiple interests. Embrace them. There are always options to make a living from your multiple interests.
Don’t Be an Engineer, Be a Producer
My second counter-advice to finding a single true passion came from the book “Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World” by David Epstein.
An ex-boss recommended it during one of our 1-on-1s. It’s also one of Bill Gates’ recommendations on his YouTube channel. Not that he’s one of my ex-bosses or that I had 1-on-1s with him.
Gunpei Yokoi’s story is the one I remember the most from the book.
He didn’t have a single interest. He worked as a maintenance guy for card-making machines at Nintendo back in the ’60s. He spent most of his first days there playing with the company equipment.
One day, Nintendo’s president saw him playing with an extendable arm and asked him to turn it into a toy. The Nintendo Ultra Hand was born. It saved Nintendo from debt and started the Research and Development department at Nintendo.
Looking for creative ways to repurpose old technology, Yokoi’s team was responsible for many of Nintendo’s successes over the years. The Game Boy was one of them. Yes, the Game Boy!
When asked about his approach, Yokoi said “I don’t have any particular specialist skills, I have a sort of vague knowledge about everything.” He had a range of skills.
Yokoi taught his team to be producers, not engineers. An engineer focuses on the details. But a producer knows how to connect things.
Instead of following a single interest, be a scientist who follow hypotheses, runs experiments, and tests and learns. Build a range of skills.
“Be a flirt with your possible selves. Rather than a grand plan, find experiments that can be undertaken quickly.”-Range by David Epstein
Takeaways
Don’t worry about finding a single true passion and following it for the rest of your life.
It’s OK to have multiple interests and juggle between them. It’s OK to change passions. It’s OK not to have one single niche. It’s OK to be a generalist.
Having multiple passions brings a sense of curiosity and a desire to learn about the world around us.
The world needs both focused frogs and visionary birds-deep-focused specialists and “above the trees” generalists who can see the bigger picture.