Oh, yes. I hear what I'm saying. And it is ludicrous indeed.
I'm saying don't follow your passion. Don't do it. It's stupid, counterproductive, possibly destructive, even. Worse, it directs your focus to a place you don't want it to be.
Followers of Jesus Christ will remember him saying "he who would save his life, must lose it", or words to that effect. That's precisely what I mean here. "Following your passion" keeps your focus inward, on yourself. It requires you to be constantly examining yourself for passion, excitement, wide-open thrills. If you're not getting them, then something must be wrong.
Lemme give it to you straight, sunshine. I've been married to the finest woman on earth for almost 27 years now. I said finest, not most beautiful or sexiest or thinnest, although my love is beautiful, and sexy, and thin (she weighs less now than she did on our wedding day, and routinely wears our 15-year-old daughter's clothes) (sorry, Charlotte). Much of the time she's been tired, and lined, and covered in puke or poop or who-knows-what, because we have eight children. No one--no one--is ravishingly sexy at 3am after cleaning up from food poisoning.
If I'd followed my passion, I'd have been down the road. It's not passion that keeps me here, but commitment. Because of the commitment we made to each other, and that we honor every day, we have passion that is undreamed-of by those that are on their fourteenth relationship of the year. Passion, and security, and a love so deep it's inexpressible.
It's because of commitment that I have one of the longest-running blog series on Steemit. It's because of commitment that I landed a book contract. And that I can spend my days teaching kids and writing and pruning my tomatoes. None of that has anything to do with passion. Passion is stupid. It's exhausting. Just stop it.
Commitment directs the focus outward, toward the other. Toward the work, the partner, the neighbor in need. The fellow Steemian. That blog series? You know whose posts have never been featured, with over 350 awards given out so far? MINE. I'll be fine. But there are a lot of people out there struggling. I can help them. I'm committed to helping them, and if that means $.41 for two hours' work, then so what? Commitment doesn't care. Passion would have given this up a long time ago. But I'm passionate about Steemit because of my commitment to it.
Ludicrous or not, here's what I'm saying: stop worrying about what your passion is. Pick something and get really, really good at it. Commit to it. You'll go places passion will never dream of.