Most motivational and graduation speeches online tell us this over-used advice, “Pursue your passion, and money will follow.” Time and time again, students hear it from school, and startup companies hear it from business panjandrums. This adage sounds great, but is it the best advice, especially for people living on the edge financially?
Money is a powerful tool in today’s world, yet it often comes with the price of not living doing what you love. Doing what you love may give you something to look forward to every morning, but will your salary be enough to pay all your bills?
Passion and money are barely aligned. Choosing which is a big dilemma. But if you want to get rich, it is not your passion that you need to follow, but the money. Let’s take a clear look at what money and passion are before discussing the reason why.
What is passion?
Passion is a strong emotion towards the things we love doing. It often materializes on the causes we support, our hobbies, or the sports we want to play. Pursuing passion brings internal satisfaction, even when they give little to no revenues. We run after them for fun and not for the sake of money. In fact, it’s the other way around— they cost money.
Being passionate in a certain area means you have a strong desire and willingness to spend time doing them because they bring you delight. You don’t expect to get rewarded by doing them. You just want to have real fun.
What is money?
Money is means of exchange that enables people to acquire things they need in order to live. There was a substantial change in money since the time of silver and shells. But its primary function didn’t change at all. It serves as an intermediary between seller and buyer in the form of paper, digital currencies, banknotes, and coins.
A person earns money when they offer something that has value to people who need it, may it be goods or services. The caliber of the value you bring and the number of people who are in need of that value will be the factors that would affect the amount of money you can make. You could pay your financial obligations from your earnings, including utility bills, food, rent, leisure, and anything you want to buy.
Passion Aggrandizement
The outcome of passion perseverance is often exaggerated. Frequently we hear “passion brings success” and “follow your passion and money will follow,” but truthfully, passion was just assessed too highly by idealists. People who follow their passion without heeding attention to money fail to recognize the difference between doing something for fun and doing something for money. They fail to separate hobby and job.
Individuals who believe in the idea of pursuing passion always defend themselves by illustrating superstars from the sports and entertainment industry who became successful, earning millions of dollars by going after what they really love.
However, think of this scenario. Thousands of people living in slums fancy street fights— they like being in the center of attention in disputes and love watching others exchange blows. Despite that, you can count by hand the number of people who had transformed their fighting passion into becoming professional fighters.
The same goes for university varsity players. They have a passion for sports, yet only a few carry on until they become professionals. Players could have endured because they love what they are doing. Yet, they did not because they were aware of the reality.
To put it simply, even if you can adapt your passion into a full-time business or career, asking yourself if you can perform it at a professional and unrivaled level is necessary. Being passionate about something does not make you really skilled and qualified at it.
Still, even if your skills meet the qualification of professional level. The question that comes next is if you can handle the pressure of consistently performing at a professional level for a very long time? For most people, the answer is a big no.
Another example. Let’s say you love everything about movies. So, if you were to chase your passion, you’re supposed to enter the movie industry. Perhaps, as a producer, director, or movie. Yet, even if you were given an opportunity, if you don’t have any skills related to the industry, there is no way you could perform at a professional level in the role you want. You might end up getting burned by your fiery passion.
Drawbacks of Pursuing What You Really Love
Following your passion could bring forth unfavorable consequences such as the following:
Your passion may cause a lack of financial stability
If your passion is not compatible with the market demand, it is very unlikely for you to receive a steady salary from something you enjoy doing. Most often than not, people have a passion that either doesn’t compensate well, or the industry is too massive to penetrate, affecting financial stability.
For instance, you love dancing so much that you’ve always dreamt of being an instructor when the time comes. You feel like you can commit your whole life to dance because it brings you so much joy.
However, if you decide to follow this passion of yours, will you be able to support yourself? Will you be able to pay all your bills without trouble? Several people know and are good at dancing. Even so, not too many actually earn a living out of it.
Would you rather starve to pursue your passion than live a comfortable life earning a hundred thousand bucks doing what you don’t love? If you reflect on the situations wisely, the money you get from the job you don’t enjoy could allow you to enjoy your passion during your spare time.
Your passion may require professionalism
No matter how immense your love is for something, if you don’t have the qualities, skill set, and dedication to excel in doing it, you will fail, and your passion can lose its shine.
Let’s say you pursue you’re doing what you love. Will you still endure and stay right on track when circumstances are trying to turn you against your passion? Would you still continue when the passion that you enjoy so much becomes so stressful? You should consider these things before chasing your fervor.
Your passion demands money
Passion does cost money. For instance, your enthusiasm lies in making burgers. Although you can make burgers way better than McDonald’s, you will need a huge amount of money to build a business around this passion.
You would need to rent a space, pay wages to your staff, and buy the equipment required to run your business. If you don’t have the resources to meet these terms, it would be very unlikely for you to establish a profitable business.
There is actually nothing wrong with persevering with your passion. There are oodles of individuals who succeeded and made an enormous amount of money by doing so. The main problem is that people tend to confuse the idea of pursuing passion and building a career.
Instead of believing that you can be rich by merely following your passion, the more salutary advice would be, “Follow your skills and run after money if you want to get rich.”
Even when you might not have strong enthusiasm for the skill that could earn you money, you should learn how to love and improve them to achieve financial success. Mastering your skills to build a thriving career is the way to fully enjoy your passion as a hobby.
