[Ryant]

Long time lurker, first time poster

I always hear we should find our passion or find what we love to do but how do you do it and how do you know you found it?

I'm interested in a lot of things but not sure if I love them or know if I can make a living from them.



Anybody here find their passion or can give some advice?

[Dralud]

English is not your mother tonge, is it?
Elaborate on "love" and "passion", please.

[ChanceyRose]

People who tell you to 'find your passion' and 'do what you love' aren't usually NTs. For an NT, a career that capitalizes your skill set usually equates to enjoying your job, as long as the work environment isn't too obnoxious. Aside from that, being passionate about your work or loving what you do is, in my opinion, irrelevant. My career is only one role among many.

Now, if you're talking about hobbies..... I have a few long-standing interests that are woven into my life and are part of how I identify myself. I wouldn't say I'm passionate about them. I wouldn't say I love them unless I'm talking to a personality type who responds to that kind of exuberance. I know that I enjoy them more than other things because I return to them. I don't consider the effort I put into them to be work. For example, I will willingly go out into the summer heat to horseback ride but I won't go outside to mow the lawn.

[lolthevoidlol]

Don't know. I haven't encountered anything that triggered a passionate response (a positive one, there are plenty of things I hate). There are many things I like and I think I would perfectly fine or even mildly happy with as a career, but no passions. This has become a pain for my grad school application process because they all want an essay on why their program is oh so perfect for you and you're oh so perfect for it and how it will be so frickin awesome to go there and it will change your life forever. And I'm just like, I'll be fine where ever thanks. I have sometimes wondered because of how others talk about it if I'm not missing something by not being passionate. They seem to imply that being less than passionate (at least about one thing in your life) is actually a negative as opposed to just fine. But I expect to be at least just fine for the rest of my life and I can't really see how that's a bad thing.

[dalsgaard]

This has been a huge problem for me. Ever since I went back to school, I've been interested in all courses and classes. Visual arts, philosophy, psychology, physics, chemistry, geography, Danish, English, history, political science, math.... I devour it all.

Eventually I decided to go by process of elimination. I ended up with physics as the subject that interested me the most, and I'm still not entirely sure about that. How can we know for sure?

[Brentwoodsm]

Definitely one of life's most perplexing question. I forgot who said it but it might've been Maslow who said that the luckiest person on earth is the one who gets paid doing what they love to do.

Try googling how to find what you love to do and click on the first link. I don't have enough posts to post the link.

It is nice and structured so try doing the exercises and see what comes up.

[Transcendence]

Acting is a good way to figure out what you wanna do.

You take on a different personality and apply it to yourself.
This way you can walk in someone else's shoes, and perhaps you'll like it.

[Unassimilated]

Long time lurker, first time poster

I always hear we should find our passion or find what we love to do but how do you do it and how do you know you found it?

I'm interested in a lot of things but not sure if I love them or know if I can make a living from them.

Anybody here find their passion or can give some advice?

You changed your question right at the end. You started with "How do I find my passion" and changed it to "How do I find my passion that also happens to pay the bills."

Answer to the original question - do lots of things. You will find things you love to do. Those are your passions.

Answer to the second question - after you have found things you love to do, figure out how to reshape your job to incorporate them or find a job that allows you to do those things. You may not find your passions quickly, it took many years before I found some of mine. Also your passions may not pay the bills. They may generate them instead.

(not seeing any obvious English as a second language syntax either, loves and passions are appropriate words for what you're asking)

[antiant]

The problem is in the words themselves. "How do you find..." "Will I ever be happy..." "I'm looking for my soul mate..." as if to say that you are going to magically find a "happy ending." This so called "logic" is already faulty to begin with, with weak premises. Those who cannot understand why this is problematic, will continue to believe in baseless phrases, such as these. Life starts now, it's not some grand waiting game, where we finally reach utopia at the age of 50. When that is realized, only then will you stop wasting your energy chasing your own tail and the tails/tales of others. All you do is end up going in circles and for what purpose? To become dizzy your whole life? Think about it. /rant

[Sanskrit]

Acting is a good way to figure out what you wanna do.

You take on a different personality and apply it to yourself.
This way you can walk in someone else's shoes, and perhaps you'll like it.

Perhaps for ENTJ, but we have Ni.