"Follow your passion" is a pretty bad saying...I've got something better!
Following your passion is for the privileged, yeah I said it.
It's a concept known to most people, but practically has no value for the majority of people who are trying to make a living. Following your passion has to be one of the most misleading statements that permeate our culture today, mostly because of the context that it doesn't provide the right context to make a smart decision. If I had to rewrite that statement, it would say: "Follow your passion if it's marketable, pays well, and has longevity in the market. Let me break this down and you'll understand why it needs all those extra parts in the first place.
...It's Marketable
There are a ton of skills out there, like juggling multiple chainsaws, blowing up 5 balloons in a minute without passing out, eating 67 hotdogs in 15 minutes, but whatever skill you have, you need to ask yourself is it marketable? Is there a big enough pool of companies to hire for that skill, or people who'd like to use that skill in exchange for cold hard cash? If the answer is no, then I've got some bad news for you, keep that passion as your side gig in your free time, and look for that marketable skill to pay the bills.
...It Pays Well
Well duh, this is an obvious one right? Money really narrows down what meets at the intersection of passion and practicality. Unfortunately, money makes the world go 'round (well technically gravity does, but bear with me here), and you'll need to find your own way to make it spin. I try to really understand what skills are out there that pay well and most align with something I think I'd enjoy most, and get REALLY good at it. That's the key to finding the few skills that put you in the sweet spot of enjoyment and sustainability, it's a hard balance, but one very worthwhile to spend time searching for.
...Has Longevity in the Market
Think about the job or skill that you want to leverage into a job, is it going to still be relevant in 5 years? 10 years? 30? Now I'm not implying that you'd be doing the same thing for 30+ years, but I'd like for you to think about how needed that job or skill might be going forward. People like to think about tech jobs as practically immune from the passage of time as if that's an exception, but that's definitely not true. As technology progresses, so does the nature of the work, and one job that was growing rapidly the previous 10 years may plateau or even worse decline because of a new technology that makes something obsolete or automates an important aspect of the job entirely.
The tech industry isn't a special case here, longevity in the market has been synonymous with trade skills for decades even before tech became what it is today. Electricians, plumbers, general contractors, etc continue to stay in demand and will be for the foreseeable future, hell even funeral home services will FOREVER be in demand, right?
Following your passion often times means making a tradeoff, and that tradeoff has naturally been easier for those with privilege than those without, and it pains me to hear when people give that advice to just everyone because it's not very practical. Hopefully this post gave you a little perspective, or it completely pissed you off, either way I did my job.
Thanks for reading.
(Cover Photo by Kashawn Hernandez on Unsplash)