Passionfruit

“Follow your passions” - Everyone, ever.

Such sentiment is true for many facets of a colorful life but this line of thinking is most often associated with our work and happiness there. Passion is not necessarily the one way to find happiness in our work, but rather it is a component or even a byproduct in some instances.

Consider an actual passionfruit. The fruit itself grows on a flower native to South America. The fruit dangling off the vine is the main object of one’s attention because that is what you get to eat and savor. Passion in both the fruit and emotional form are very satisfying! However, this fruit didn’t get there by itself. It was supported by other structures such as its roots.

Purpose is the root of passion. Just as the roots support the fruit, so does purpose in supporting passion. There is a distinction between the two. Every job has a purpose that we often miss out on because we are so focused on passion. Identifying one’s purpose can be just as difficult as identifying one’s passion but just as we are constantly searching to realize our passions, we should also be applying the same level of rigor and scrutiny to identify whether the purpose you are serving in your respective line of work truly resonates with you. This is the mistake a lot of people make, including me. This lack of purpose often manifests itself in people feeling that their work has no tangible impact on the world at large or even their immediate surroundings (at this point many of you might be nodding along). This is far from the truth as all jobs can be broadly broken up into two broad categories of purpose that we’ll call art and science. The sciences can include work such as banking, medicine, and politics. These jobs give us the means to live (yes, politicians do try to make our lives better sometimes). Then there are the arts, such as writing, sports, and music. These jobs give us reasons to live*. Sometimes you can serve a scientific function in an artistic industry and vice versa but you get the point. Of course, given the nature of specialization, painting in broad strokes to determine whether a job is an art or science may not give a complete understanding of the purpose behind your work. Rather, it is an exercise to reassure you that every job has a purpose, regardless of whether it is easy to discern or not, and that you may not be seeing it because you are using the wrong lense.

*If you feel I have misidentified your line of work as either an art vs a science then good! That is the point of this exercise - it is to start defining your current work’s purpose as you see it.

Now you see that your work is might be an art, science or some combination of the two. Where does one go from here? I don’t know exactly. I can’t tell you how your passion(fruit) will manifest itself. Not every flower will bear fruit immediately or even at all. You may have to find your passions outside of work. Regardless of where you find or grow your passion(fruit), you need to start with the roots and the rest will fall into place.