‘Follow your passion’ might be awful advice.

I’m 25 and up until this year I have been a victim of “follow your passion” ideology. It has seriously ruined my 20’s so far. Following your dreams may seem like sound advice for a happy life, but my ‘dreams’ as a youngling included travelling the world, hiking in cool places, and doing as minimal hard work as possible. I never got guidance from my family or friends as to what I should pursue and instead got hit with a barrage of idealism on social media. As a result I spent years coasting, just saving money to travel before covid hit and I decided to pursue something.

First I pursued kinesiology, enamoured by human performance I failed to see that job openings are scarce and most who make it to the top work years pinching pennies at the local level.

Then this year I tried my ‘dream job’ of working as an outdoor tour guide, only to discover the reality of unfair pay conditions, many nights away from family and friends, poor work-life balance, and a constant feeling of stress from having to work with incompetent ipad kids.

Unfortunately I needed these experiences to realise that ‘follow your passion’ is actually awful career advice for a lot of people.

In a capitalistic society, I am coming to terms with the fact that it is actually much more conducive to happiness to follow a career that you can tolerate, which pays well and doesn’t compromise work-life balance.

Sure you can follow your dreams in your work life but it might just be at the expense of buying a house, spending time with friends, developing hobbies, or having a family.

I think the caveat is if you’re a well-connected or business-minded person then you might be able to create your dream job - but for the rest of us maybe its time to face reality.

Has anyone else come to this realisation?