(Don’t) Follow Your
Passion
“Follow your passion? That may be the worst advice I ever
got.”
This insight from Mike Rowe of the Discovery Channel’s Dirty
Jobs runs counter to every bit of advice teenagers receive from parents, teachers,
and counselors. Yet, it may be the best
and certainly most honest guidance they hear. Now that high school seniors have
filed their college apps and patiently wait to see which school will make their
dreams come true, and high school juniors plan for the ACT and choose classes
for senior year, it may be time to reflect on the belief that our jobs should
make us happy and that college majors and career decisions should be based on
ambiguous and nuanced ideas like passion.
Recently, Mike Rowe has been focused on promoting the value
of skilled labor in a world that no longer appreciates it. Currently, there are
roughly 3-4 million unfilled jobs in skilled labor, yet students are racking up
a trillion dollars of debt for degrees they may not need. And, while there is
certainly value in a liberal arts education, many students “follow their
passion” to degrees which provide few of the skills they need for a career. Even
in colleges the focus on “passion” has shifted. AP reporter Beth Harpaz explains,
“While some top-tier schools can
still attract students by promising self-discovery and intellectual pursuits,
many colleges have changed their emphasis in the years since the recession hit.
Instead of "Follow your passion," the mantra has become more like,
"We'll help you get a job."
Writers and researchers like Daniel Coyle and Cal Newport
agree with Rowe’s suspicion about following passion. In his book The Talent Code, Coyle recommends that
students work on developing skills and talents rather than pursuing ideas like
passion and personal happiness. In the real world, most people aren’t
passionate about work or filled with zeal during the daily-ness of their jobs.
And there’s nothing wrong with that. Additionally, following passion is a
challenge for young people, many whom don’t have a passion, or at least not one
easily linked to a career. Cal Newport
concurs in his book So Good They Can’t
Ignore You, titled after a quote by actor Steve Martin. A prominent entertainer and pop culture icon,
Martin has written numerous best-selling books, an award winning play, and is considered
one of the premier art collectors in American society. He is also a renowned musician whose prowess
with the banjo rivals the best in the business.
Steve Martin is just so good at what he does. So, when Steve Martin was asked for the
secret to success, he responded, “Be so good they can’t ignore you.” That
advice – focused on developing skills and talents – is far better advice than
pursuing “passion.”
Incidentally, Newport’s book is subtitled, “Why Skills Trump
Passion in the Quest for Work We Love.” As a computer science professor at
Georgetown, Cal Newport advises young people to work on simply being good at
what they do. And rather than compare themselves to others, they should seek instead
to understand themselves and develop individual strengths. For those wondering what they want to do with
their lives, he offers this advice: “Passion is not something you follow. It’s
something that will follow you as you put in the hard work to become valuable
in the world.” If people continue to
grow and learn and develop talents, they will find their passion and success.
Robin Williams in the movie Dead Poets Society urged students to “Make your lives extraordinary.”
And many are doing exactly that. However, beyond that maybe we should advise
students to “Make yourself indispensable.” The best way to secure a career is
to have talents the world requires. In the first episode of the HBO show Girls, Hannah is fired from her unpaid
internship, only to learn her replacement is actually being paid for the job. When
she adamantly confronts her boss, he says, “Well, she knows PhotoShop.” While Hannah may tell herself, “I can learn
PhotoShop,” the reality is she didn’t. Thus,
the point is to advise kids to be the kind of person who learns Photo-Shop.
Hannah is a classic example of a person waiting for passion to lead her to happiness
– and it never happens. Successful people by
contrast are the ones who work hard and do what needs to be done to get want
they want and need.
Of course, students don’t only go to college to acquire job
skills, and society suffers from such a utilitarian approach. As Robin Williams’
character Mr. Keating teaches the young men, “medicine, law, business,
engineering – these are all noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But
poetry, beauty, romance, love – these are what we stay alive for.” And, woe to
the society that promotes only skill-oriented education at the expense of the
arts and humanities. That said, the arts and poetry – those things that often
fuel our passion – don’t have to be the source of employment. For as
contemporary sage Robert Fulghum has said, “The hardest thing for most people
to figure out is that it’s really rare to do what you love and get paid for it.
It’s almost better not to because you end up hating the thing you’re doing
because you have to do it. A lot of
people would be artists if they didn’t also have to make a living.”
As a teacher, I followed my passion. And I am fulfilled
emotionally by the very thing that pays my bills. A friend of mine majored in
finance because she is really good at math, but she is not passionate or
fulfilled by her job. In fact, it can be quite annoying and rather mundane.
However, it affords her a great life with her family, which is truly her
passion. Another friend makes a great living managing operating systems for a
multinational firm. He is not a computer geek by any stretch, but when we were
in college, computing was simply a skill he acquired, and he followed it to
success in the tech revolution. So, one us followed his passion, another
followed her skills, and the third just followed the market. That’s the full
story that should be told in advising students on college and career choices.
Michael P. Mazenko
works at Cherry Creek High School and blogs at a-teachers-view.blogspot.com.
Email him at mmazenko@gmail.com
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