“Find your passion in life” have you heard that saying before? I sure did many times growing up and it gave me the sense that there was only one thing out there, one perfect job for me, that if I found it I would naturally reap success and it would bring immense fulfillment and enjoyment.

Sometimes, thinking this way can be very restrictive, by thinking that there is only one perfect thing out there for you to do and that doing anything else other than that is simply wasting your time and keeping you away from that one thing you should be doing. This saying implies that there is only one singular passion out there for everyone and that it is our job to pursue that passion at the exclusion of everything else in our lives.

If we do find that one special passion, then we are to expect that everything will fall into place for us.

But passion is a feeling, it's not a plan. It's a hot burning flame that quickly goes out and to think that we should center our lives around something so fickle, might not be the best idea. Laying everything on passion alone, might be setting yourself up to only accept one option and one idea of the perfect job, and that will only limit you from stepping into experiences that could truly provide opportunity for growth.

You never know who you might meet or what you might gain from each experience that you divulge in.

If you turn down opportunities because you are afraid that you are going to choose the wrong path, or the wrong passion, then you could be turning away from some life-changing experiences. It's like going through life with tunnel vision, and turning yourself off to other amazing things that could be out there for you. You never know when an opportunity might bring with it the chance to have an entrepreneurial seed planted that could give birth to something else.

If you are too busy looking for passion, you could miss an opportunity that might change your life for the better.

There are many jobs that are done in the market today which are done out of necessity, not passion. Many students today are passionate about things like sports, arts, music, or just being famous in general. But there aren't a lot of jobs available today in this area, and for the few there are and competition is tough.

There are many jobs to be done that a large number of people probably don't want to do or don't dream of doing; it isn't their passion. Surely AI will help to change a lot of the job market in the future, but for now we still need people doing jobs that they probably don't have any intrinsic passion for doing. Things like handling baggage, sweeping floors, delivering pizza, cleaning toilets, emptying trash cans, pumping your gas etc, people don't likely dream of these occupations as a child and it most likely isn't their passion in life to be doing what they are doing. However, they do those jobs because they need to put food on the table and take care of their responsibilities, and all of our lives are the better for it.

For those folks who are in a job that isn't their passion, they most likely have something on the side that is an activity that they are passionate about. Not everyone is able to turn their “passion” into a wealthy success for them, but as far as life enjoyment you can still incorporate that passion into your life as a hobby or something done part-time.

One way that many people have found their own “passion” is by looking around in society for a problem to solve, by trying to be useful and generous to others.

When your energy and your individual effort works together in order for you to meet the needs of other people, that is when you can see your passion really contribute to the world. This is also when you can work toward trying to do something that you truly love, but for a living, so that you don't just have to do it for a small portion of time or on the sideline.