Ask HN: Have you found your passion yet? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Have you found your passion yet?

14 pointsFindingPassion13 comments

Hello Everyone, I have been a follower for this community for more than a year now and I probably have learned a lot just by following community. Being a big fan of Steve Jobs, I often find myself listening to his videos and they always force me to THINK :). When I graduated back in 2010, I didn't think about my passion, all I needed was a resource to pay my bills.

Now that I am a little settled, when I came across his famous speech (Stanford Univ.) again, I realized that I am 28 and I don't know my passion yet. I am not ashamed of it but I does makes me worry some times. I have worked in different industries…and I mean totally different. My profile goes with Mechanical Engg. background (field experience of 2-3 years), an year stint handling Accounts payables @ Bio Fuel trading startup (crazy times ;) but I loved it) and (currently) working as a Integration Consultant for a fortune 500. (mostly developing data integration solutions within enterprise (A2A)), I don't know where exactly my passion lies. I can get very very good (if not exceptional) references from every place I worked. So that also doesn't help me figuring out what am I good at.

Can this community share their experience on finding their passion?

Apologies for the long post. Your feedback will be much appreciated.

PS The only thing that currently excites me is analytics/data science & that's purely because of my inquisitive nature, I feel that I would enjoy in that field.

Finding your passion takes time. However, being broke really sucks. It really, really, really sucks. It's super stressful and distracting and many times if you're trying to figure out what your passion is, it's helpful to also not be simultaneously broke at the same time.

To put it another way, if you don't know what you really want to do with your life, it's generally a good idea to have as high-paying a job as possible. This way, you can get paid to figure out your life. Also it helps to have some money in the bank when and if you do figure out what you want to do.

Wanna be an actor? Well, now you can afford an agent. Wanna be a writer? Well now you can afford to go to conferences and fly around the country. Wanna be a musician? Well know you have some cushion to tour the country.

Basically, if you don't know what your passion is, then just keep working at your high-paying job until you figure it out. It's not worth just sitting around doing basically nothing.

The things you take for granted like being able to pay for shit, may not be the case once you figure out and pursue your passion. You may want to purchase a membership to some exclusive writers club(if you want to become a writer) but find that you no longer have the funds because you quite your high-paying job. I would say figure out a way to pursue your passion smartly so that you're not left completely broke.

Also, if you're not already doing it on the side in some capacity, then I would definitely recommend NOT quitting your day job. It's a passion. If you're truly passionate about it, then it should be something you're already doing.

Yes, but it doesn't pay well enough until I can get rid of my student loans. I worked as a whitewater rafting guide for summers while in college and have never felt so alive and happy in my life. Unfortunately, I had 60k in student loans (and my wife had more). My current plan is to work a job which pays way more than I deserve in tech while keeping my living expenses as low as possible.

About 4 years from now my wife an I are leaving the corporate world forever with all of the loans paid off and enough in the 401k's to never worry about retirement again. We will work at what we love (outdoor guiding and photography) and will be significantly happier for it.

Engineering and tech are great for some people. I'm glad I looked elsewhere to find a passion though.

Ha! that's nice. Never looked at my career that way. I guess having a set goal in terms of career makes it rather easy to stay with current job even if its not your first choice because you know where you are heading. I wish you good luck.

My end goal is the expansion of human consciousness; I think there are many paths to that route. Mindfulness. Writing novels. Making art. Music. Advancing communications technology. Space Travel. I'd like to see the world become kinder and happier in my lifetime, and to explore its curiosity.

So as long as I'm doing anything in the service of that, I feel good.

I think being good at something does not mean that's your passion. I think it's more about finding a passion, and working towards to be good at it would make more sense. That's the case for me.

I was exposed to web programming early age, built my first Geocities website that served pirated movies, at the age of 11. After finishing the website, I noticed a lot of people actually came to my site, wrote thank you notes in my shitty, Geocities guestbook.

Being 11 years old, seeing those thank you notes really encouraged me to move forward, and bought my first PHP book.

Ever since, I started building websites and products to reach out to the users. There were lots of failures, actually, most were failures, but that didn't stop me from moving forward.

Passion is something that you find value in doing. For me, it's not about the money, but it's about seeing those thank you notes for providing value to my customers.

Thanks for your comment. When I graduated, yes it was about $$$ but now it's not about the money anymore. I feel that if I start finding value in something, start enjoying something on a daily basis. @ this point If I request you to give me one suggestion what would it be?

Computers and more recently programming.

In 2001 I got my first taste of the internet when my mom brought home a crappy laptop and connected it via dial up. I was 6 or 7 and got hooked playing chess on yahoo games.

Ever sense I've been a power user spending at least 8+ hours online a day and loving it!

Started teaching myself to code in high-school.(4-5 hours a day easy throwaway online classes == great way to spend senior year) After I graduated last year my average time spent in front of a computer climbed to summer vacation levels of around 16+ hours a day.

Little bit of addiction, whole lot of passion.

I think passion is when you try something (theme A) for a good long period of time, and failed. Tried something else (theme B). Then when someone talked to you about Theme A randomly - and it struck you with a feeling on getting back into that field. <== then you found your passion.

In your situation, you have no crunch time, no deadline. You sit safely in your good job (understood through the situation). But there is no urgency.

Create self-motivation to try new things. Help people for free. If you enjoy the process even when its free - good opportunity to continue.

If I had a billion dollars to my name tomorrow I would probably not change a thing. My passion is coding. I would still find a job where I would feel like a valuable member of the team. I would still try my best to be better tomorrow than I am today. I would still live in my apartment, drive my old, beat up, car.

My computer would probably get an upgrade or two tho.

All I need from life from here on out is to be able to code, and enough income to sustain me. I have no dreams of owning my own company or getting rich. So I am pretty close to my ideal existence :)

My passion changes from week to week it seems.

But the common thread between all the passions I've had is that they involve solving problems creatively and aiming for beauty in the end result.

In my view the passion could be something that you like today, but it could be something totally different tomorrow.

The secret of success in an ability to recognize and follow the passion moment to moment.

That is the big part of the secret of "living in the now".

What would you do if you were moderately rich (apart from partying, traveling etc.)? I would still code, maybe hire a team to help me.

Yes, when I was about 8.

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