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Career Passion and Hard Work

Guest post by: Ben Nash

Article Overview: Passion is mostly a good thing-right? Then I thought about Mel Gibson’s Movie, “The Passion of the Christ,” and with all the negative publicity around Mel these days, I wasn’t so sure any more. So I went and looked up “passion” in the dictionary. It said that “passion” is from the Latin verb patior, meaning to suffer or to endure. As an emotion it is an intense, compelling feeling, enthusiasm, or desire for something. So which is it guys? To suffer or endure or to desire something? This left me even more confused! The only concussion that I could come to was that passion seemed to be a desire for suffering, but that did not seem rite either so I kept on looking. Then I came across an article written by Curt Roengren: “4 Myths About Career Passion.” Here’s what he says...

Career Passion and Hard Work

Passion is mostly a good thing—right? Then I thought about Mel Gibson’s Movie, “The Passion of the Christ,” and with all the negative publicity around Mel these days, I wasn’t so sure any more. So I went and looked up “passion” in the dictionary. It said that “passion” is from the Latin verb patior, meaning to suffer or to endure. As an emotion it is an intense, compelling feeling, enthusiasm, or desire for something. So which is it guys? To suffer or endure or to desire something? This left me even more confused! The only concussion that I could come to was that passion seemed to be a desire for suffering, but that did not seem rite either so I kept on looking. Then I came across an article written by Curt Roengren: “4 Myths About Career Passion.” Here’s what he says:

• Myth No. 1 – Pursuing your passion is selfish and self-indulgent. Too many people fall prey to the notion that if it’s fun, it must be selfish. Finding work you love is one of the best things you could ever do for your loved ones.
• Myth No. 2 – You have to be “realistic.” People say, “Sure, I’d like to pursue my passion, but when it comes to work, you have to get realistic. I have responsibilities. I can’t just go chasing after fun.” After all, work is called work for a reason, right? You don’t get paid to have fun—or so many of us believe. There’s often an element of this myth at play in myth No. 1. (”I can’t be selfish and have fun because I have to get serious and take care of my responsibilities.”)
• Myth No. 3 – Do what you love, and the money will follow. Sorry, folks. “Do what you love, and the money will follow” is actually the abbreviated version. The full version is “Do what you love, work really, really hard, be patient, be persistent, be open, work really, really hard some more, and the money will follow.” Not quite as catchy, I know, but much more accurate.
• Myth No. 4 – I’m limited by the rules. This one makes me want to scream. When I hear a variation on this theme, I always have to resist the urge to look at them and bleat, “Baaaaaaaah!” Sheep! Whose rules?

I guess that is where the suffering and the desire come together—you need enough desire to achieve your career goals and to get you through the “work really, really hard, be patient, be persistent, be open, and work really, really hard some more” bit.

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Article Tags: 4 Myths about career passion, career choice, career development, careers development, Curt Roengren, development career, human resource management, Mel Gibson, organizationl development, passion



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