You know that feeling when someone asks what your passion is, and your brain just… freezes? Like you’re supposed to have this ready-made answer about your divine calling, but instead you’re thinking about why your boss raised their eye brows at you earlier?
Yeah, that’s me.
We’ve been sold this idea that somewhere out there, hidden like an Easter egg in a video game, is our purpose. Our passion. That one thing that’ll make us leap out of bed at 5 AM, eyes bright, ready to conquer the world. And if we haven’t found it yet? Well, we’re just not looking hard enough. We’re failing at life’s most basic assignment.
But what if that’s all bullshit?
The Passion Industrial Complex
Walk into any bookstore or more likely, scroll through any self-help corner of the internet and you’ll drown in promises. “Find Your Why.” “Discover Your Calling.” “Unlock Your True Potential.” It’s everywhere, this idea that you’re incomplete without some grand, singular purpose driving your existence.
The problem? Most of us are too busy existing to go on some soul-searching expedition. We’re paying rent. Arguing about whose turn it is to pick up the kids. Sitting in traffic wondering if that noise the car’s making is expensive. We’re building careers we’re not sure we even like because, well, medical bills and school fees and cheap. We’re raising kids who somehow need new shoes every three months. We’re managing debt that compounds faster than our dreams ever did.
And in the quiet moments maybe at 2 AM when sleep won’t come and are scrolling through TikTok, we wonder if we’re doing it all wrong. If somewhere along the way, we missed the exit to Fulfillment Town and ended up in this suburb of average instead.
The Weight of “Following Your Passion”
Here’s what nobody tells you about passion: it’s demanding as hell. It doesn’t care that your daughter has a soccer tournament this weekend or that your in-laws are visiting or that you’re three payments behind on that credit card you swore you’d never max out. Passion wants attention. Time. Energy. Resources you might not have lying around.
So you put it off. You tell yourself “someday.” You watch other people on Instagram apparently living their dream lives the travel blogger in Bali, the artist in their sun-drenched studio, the entrepreneur who “quit the rat race” and you feel that familiar twist in your gut. Envy mixed with resignation mixed with a dash of self-loathing for even caring.
Because you do have a passion. You’ve always known what it is. For me, it was building software. Not just using it, but creating it. Writing code that solves problems, that makes something new exist where nothing existed before. There’s this rush when it works when you run the program and it does exactly what you envisioned. Pure magic wearing the disguise of logic and syntax.
But software development wasn’t my day job. My day job paid the bills. Fed the family. Chipped away at that mountain of debt we’d accumulated doing what responsible adults do buying houses, having kids, pretending we had our shit together. And here’s the thing: I was good at my job. Even became a leader. The kind who keeps their composure, who doesn’t let the cracks show, who makes it all look manageable even when it absolutely isn’t.
So the passion? The software? It got filed under “nice to have” rather than “need to have.” I’d occasionally open my laptop late at night, tinker with an idea, then close it again when reality came knocking. Because what’s the point of chasing a dream when you’re drowning in depression, responsibility, debt and the mundane machinery of staying afloat?
When the Plot Twists
Beginning of 2025, something shifted. Maybe I got tired of my own excuses. Maybe the depression lifted just enough to let a sliver of hope in. Maybe I just needed to know if I could still do it. Whatever the reason, I started building software on the side.
It was messy. Stop and start, stop and start. Some days I’d code for hours, convinced this was it the breakthrough, the momentum, I am finally complete. Most days I’d stare at the screen, cursor blinking mockingly, and think: Who am I kidding? The rhythm was erratic, the progress inconsistent. Not exactly the stuff of inspirational LinkedIn or Whatsapp posts.
Then one ordinary day, after months of this back-and-forth dance, I loaded my software onto Apple’s platform. It went live. My creation born from late nights and stolen hours and sheer stubborn refusal to let it die was out there in the world. Real. Accessible. Mine.
I wanted to scream. To run around the office high-fiving strangers. To blast “Eye of the Tiger” and do a victory lap through the parking lot. But I’m a composed leader, remember? So I stayed in my chair, face calm, while inside I was absolutely losing it. The kind of joy that makes your chest feel too small to contain it. The kind that proves you’re still capable of feeling something other than tired.
And in that moment, I thought: Maybe this passion thing isn’t complete bullshit after all.
So What’s the Verdict?
Here’s what I think I am figuring ot, still fresh from the high of seeing my app icon on a screen: Finding your purpose isn’t a scam. But the way we talk about it? That might be.
The scam is the narrative that passion should be easy, or that it happens in a lightning bolt moment of clarity. The scam is the idea that you should abandon everything else to pursue it, or that you’re failing if you haven’t monetized it, quit your day job, and turned it into your entire identity. The scam is making people feel inadequate because they’re building regular lives with debt and jobs and responsibilities instead of some Instagram-filtered fantasy.
But the passion itself? That spark that makes you feel alive in a way that paying bills and scrolling through feeds never will? That’s real. And maybe it doesn’t have to be your whole life. Maybe it can be the thing you do in the margins, in the stolen hours, in the spaces between obligation and exhaustion. Maybe that’s enough.
Maybe passion isn’t about finding your purpose. Maybe it’s about remembering you’re more than the sum of your responsibilities. That you contain multitudes. That the person you were before the mortgage and the boss and the broken sleep schedule is still in there, waiting for you to give them even a sliver of attention.
Your Turn
So here’s where I throw it back to you: Is finding your purpose a scam? Are you chasing something you’ve convinced yourself matters, or running from something you’re afraid doesn’t? Have you found ways to feed your passions around the edges of your real life, or are you still waiting for permission to start?
And if you’ve felt the pleasure or satisfaction of doing something just for you? Did it change everything, or just remind you that you’re still capable of making something that matters?
Tell me in the comments. Because I’m genuinely curious whether I’m alone in this confused, exhilarated middle ground between complete cynic and true believer.