Introduction

This is a topic I've struggled with for a long time. I've always been very envious of friends of mine who are so passionate about something. Passion is difficult to define, but how I define it is, if you have nothing to do, no plans for the day and have no distractions, where would your mind naturally divert itself to?

For some of my close friends, it's wall-climbing, or drone flying, or personal-finance, or even how to start a successful air-condition company. I'm very envious, and even jealous, of them because I don't know what my passion is. I don't have something that keeps me up at night or wakes me up early in the morning other than to go through the day like a normal functioning human being.

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There has actually been so many quotes on this that it's actually quite sickening, to be honest. But what I aim to do with this post, is to explore what passion really means.

Two General School of Thought

From my observations and conversations, there are generally two schools of thought when it comes to passion.

The first would be the ones that create quotes and fill their instagrams with #passion. That life is meaningless without passion. That unless you've found your passion, you're a wandering lost soul.

The second would be the ones that think passion is nice, but not essential to living. Some in fact are against passion. Saying

Passion is Overrated

Source You can put that on a fancy image too
Generally, I fall within the 2nd category. I think that Passion is a WANT not a NEED. If the world were full of people who followed their passion today, we'd have tons of gamers, food critics and binge drinkers and not enough accountants, engineers or administrators - people who do the miserable but necessary jobs that keep society from falling apart (those are examples, I'm an engineer myself and I don't think its a miserable job).

Source of Passion

According to Freud, the human psyche is split into the Id, Ego and SuperEgo with the Id being the part of our brain that contains basic our most basic human drive and instincts, while the Ego contains our reasoning and common sense. Finally, the Superego reflects the internalization of cultural rules.

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So, passion actually comes from the Id. The most childish, irrational and emotional aspect of your psyche. But that's not to say it's no good, it is still very important to satisfy your Id, but passion-driven people tend to forget about the needs of their Ego and SuperEgo as well.

If passion feeds the Id, responsibility feeds the SuperEgo. This is my opinion.

What is the Point of this Post?

Honestly, I don't know. I came into this topic thinking it would be a factual, impartial description and personal opinion of Passion. But it's something I struggle with so much, it doesn't make sense to me and yet I want it as well.

As I said before, my definition of passion is something you do/think when there is nothing else. So for me, this downward spiral is what I do/think about when there is nothing else which is why I always find distractions. Before this, it was the excitement of joining a new company. Before that, it was the up-and-down rollercoaster ride of infatuation. Before that, it was the excitement of interviewing for a new job!

But I want to take a different approach this time. I'm going to put myself in that 2nd school of thought. That I do not need a passion, it's nice to have but not necessary. Instead of worrying about how or where to find a new passion, I will focus on my needs and responsibilities.

If I can't make my Id happy, I'll at least make my Ego and SuperEgo happy.

To keep it to the theme of imagery, this is the next strategy I will try.

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Please do let me know what you think. This is a never-ending conversation across generations but it has become and will become more and more prevalent as with each generation we become more privileged and not have to worry of like, disease and death and stuff.