I was speaking to a close friend over the phone a few nights ago, and she said something that I couldn’t seem to shake. This friend recently got married and moved halfway across the world. Her life had changed so drastically in the past year, much like my own.
She told me over the duration of the call she was thinking of taking up a career in nutrition. She said she just wanted to follow her passions at this point in her life. When she really sat back and thought about it, she realized she was truly passionate about food. Honestly, when she said it, it made sense to me.
What stuck with me wasn’t her choice of passion, but rather this idea of following what makes you passionate versus what you think you are supposed to be doing.
As a society, we are taught from a young age to get through high school, do well enough to get into an acclaimed college, and while in college, get an internship in preparation for a job offer by your senior year—one that makes you enough money to pay your bills. Nowhere in this generic formula does it say to find a job that you love, to find something that you are passionate about and stick with it.
It feels as though we are programmed to put financial gain over what makes us happy. This causes recent 22-year-old graduates to slide into positions they believe they are expected to enjoy. In reality, from my own personal experience, a lot of people are not following the things that make them happy—such as music, writing, cooking, art, and so much more—because the things that make us happy tend not to be money-makers.
So, we are taught to suck it up, fall right into the rat race, and just try to stay afloat. In this process, many of us tend to sacrifice our happiness, myself included. I constantly feel this pull between doing what I love and finding something that will pay the rent. Without the financial stress and the general expectations around what success looks like, I believe more people would be in completely different careers.
This tension between doing what is expected of us to survive in society and doing what brings us internal happiness fascinates me. I wonder how much society would change if we were all able to pursue careers that made us happy. Would we live in a more communal society? Would there be less crime? Would fewer people pursue higher education? If money were out of the equation, how would our daily interactions change?
Money breeds power imbalances, and imbalances breed anger, and eventually, violence.
I don’t have any answers to these questions at the moment, but I created this blog to begin curating and broadening what I am truly passionate about. I also have not found the balance between doing what I love and being able to fulfill my responsibilities. But I feel as though asking the big questions creates a space where others who feel this way can understand that they are not alone.
Now, I will leave you with some food for thought:
If money wasn’t a motivator, would you stay in your current position? If not, what would you be doing?
Intimacy (2011) by Kenne Gregoire
TheAdornmentofAdora 
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