Work precedes passion.
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Notes
You are not born with your passion (a calling), and you don’t have just one passion. Thinking in those terms can be a way to avoid doing the work.
Our passion is the work we’ve trusted ourselves to commit to.
Thoughts
Continuing the pattern of the previous chapters, turning the cause-effect of creative work on its head: a passion—a love and commitment to doing a thing—does not lead us to the work we need to do. The work we do becomes a passion, but “only after we trust the process.”
I’ve heard Seth (and many others) say this before; this is why I was a bit surprised when Seth wrote in the last chapter about “the work you were born to do.” That sounded a bit like the “follow your passion” crowd.
I do think, at least in some cases, that passion may precede the work. I have heard and read of many people whose story suggests that they discovered a passion—they’d tried many things, committed to many things, and then picked up a guitar, or sat down to write, or joined an organization making a difference and quickly (even immediately) felt at home.
And I suppose my shift from trumpet to guitar, way back in junior high school, felt a bit like that, too. Though I liked trumpet, daily practicing was too often a matter of parental decree. But I found a guitar in my parents’ closet—a cheap guitar, with a broken bridge that made it really hard to play—and suddenly I was practicing hours a day, completely on my own.
Even in that case, though—even if I did discover, rather than choose, that interest—the commitment (or lack thereof) is the important thing. I practiced a lot, but not well; I was following my passion, but not really committing to it. It was a surface passion.
Almost 50 years later, it probably still is. Discovering a (surface) passion and committing to a (deep) passion marks the difference that Seth is pointing to.
Seth returns to the notion that trusting your self (as well as “the process”) is key. I’m not sure exactly what it means to “trust my self“—but I am beginning to suspect that this trust, as with these other things (how we feel, the stories we tell, “flow,” “voice“), likely comes from action.
A quick aside: Seth seems to have moved away from the notion of “art”; at least, he hasn’t used the term for awhile. I don’t struggle as much thinking in terms of “work,” and especially “creative work,” though I recognize that this may have similar drawbacks if examined closely. But it’s a different “story,” and it’s been interesting for me to confront that fact.
This series is meant to capture my thoughts as I work through Seth Godin’s The Practice. It’s a book with over 200 (very short) chapters, which I hope to work through and, I further hope, to implement over time.
If you’re interested in more of Godin’s ideas, or my thoughts about them, you can check out this collection of posts. Note that if you’re more interested in the former, you should probably get Godin’s book and read it yourself; my notes will be both incomplete and idiosyncratic, and my thoughts will relate to my own experience.
But if my thoughts resonate with you, or if you think I’m just silly, I welcome your comments.