Whoever said it was smart for one to find their passion, then the rest (a.k.a. money) will follow, must have had good intentions, but I write today to state my case against this. It sounds nice, right? Follow your heart, and then everything else becomes easy. Make your passion your vocation, then it no longer is “work.”

It’s so. . . misleading. It’s misguided. It’s so. .  . entitled, arrogant and millennial (all synonyms). 

At best it’s aspirational.

It’s . . . bullshit.

So why am I shooting down this notion of pursuing one’s passion as their vocation? It’s simple. 99.999% of people do not find true passion in their vocation- to do their job. Don’t get me wrong – many may enjoy what they do, and also be good at it, but be passionate about it? I’d like to meet one person who is truly passionate about what they do. For instance, I think it’s silly for any employer to expect passion from their employees, no matter what company it is. That is not to say that employees cannot be passionate, but for any employer to expect it from someone is a ridiculous idea. Moreover, when an employee is actually passionate about their vocation, it’s usually because there is a core-driven motivation that comes from within a person that their tasks, processes, and overall goals happen to jive with. You can’t tell anyone to just generate passion, or be passionate. I almost guarantee you that it will be a fake passion at best. It’s actually unabashedly presumptuous on the part of the employer to even dare ask an employee to have passion for what they do, much less their position. And anything less than genuine passion means that employee is just working to make a dollar. Nothing wrong with that by the way.

But why do I say this? Because let’s be real for two seconds here – very few people are passionate at jobs that are required to generate money to sustain a living. Show me a person who is passionate about sifting through spreadsheets, building presentations, or editing documents all day, and I will show you a liar (or at least a deluded person). Most of the things that I’ve seen people be truly passionate about are things that people do not take on as their vocation. These things I’ve seen people develop passions for are things like playing and/or creating music, traveling, reading books, philanthropy, culinary arts, racing cars, building a family, surfing, fishing, camping, rock climbing, snow/water sports, hiking, fitness, and the list goes on and on and on – you get the picture of what people can really be passionate about.

It’s kind of obvious – we all work to obtain the means to do what we truly want to do in life. That much is expected – there is no free lunch unless you are a trust fund child or hit the lotto (and even then it’s work for these people to enjoy pure opulence). However I will submit that it’s worth stepping back for a moment taking a look at passion and how it directly impacts each one of us.

Here’s my point of view: I don’t think it’s either necessary or even recommended for one to be passionate about their vocation. However, I do think it is important for one to recognize what their true passions in life are, amidst the noise of life and vocation. Almost always will it be the case that one is not passionate about what they do, but they do what they do because they’re good at it, and/or they even kind of like it-  and that’s totally OK. But when they come home from a hard day’s work, to feed their time, energy, and resources into the thing they really love to do, perhaps passionate about – well hey, it’s all worth it then.

I run an internet marketing business. When people ask me what that means, or what I specifically do, depending on how much I want to explain to the person, my answer will change accordingly. Sometimes I work in finance, sometimes I am a marketer, sometimes I do operations – and all of this is true. But if you were to ask me if I am passionate about what I do, my answer is a resounding HELL NO I’m not passionate about my job! I’m pretty decent at it, and I do enjoy what I do. I enjoy the flexibility and freedom it brings. I enjoy the mechanics of forging and negotiating business deals, and tending to my investments as they grow. But my passion is not in my work.

My passion is in a few other key things in my life. I have a passion for learning. I have a passion for music (specifically set drumming and piano), travel, finding eclectic (and truly weird) ways to live, helping others, and stuffing my face with good food. This much, I can demonstrate with the evidence of where all my time and money goes. There are other passions that I hope to develop someday, like videography, brasilian jiujitsu, music production, and language learning – but they’re not passions of mine as of yet. I don’t deserve to call them my passions at this time as I haven’t made them priorities at the moment. It’s fun to have passions to look forward to, however.

But my vocation is certainly not something I’m passionate about, that’s for damn sure. I only do what I do because it enables me to live the way I want to. If I ever catch myself being passionate about my job, I’ll question whatever it is that I’m doing. While I’d like to be pleasantly surprised, I know that I’d probably rather be traveling the mountains of rural Japan rather than my job.

The next time any employer tells you to be passionate about your work, you might as well tell them to do the same with theirs.