When Passion Feels Elusive: A Different Way to Live

Photo by Tim Foster, Unsplash.

If you can’t find your passion, how should you live this life?

There’s one thing often misunderstood: we’re not truly passionate about a job itself, but only about the results it brings. We like being admired, we like the feeling of freedom, we like seeing ourselves as creative, we like success. But when you look closer, the things that actually create that success are not appealing at all: repetition, fixing mistakes, starting from scratch, working even when no one cares.

Many people think they are passionate about writing, until they realise that writing means sitting for hours each day, facing a blank page, and enduring countless rejections. Others believe they love photography, until they must wake up early, carry heavy equipment, and spend hours adjusting the finest details of lighting. Some dream of becoming content creators, but struggle with the daily grind of editing videos or reading through hundreds of negative comments.

In reality, this is not passion. It is simply the attraction to the final image—while overlooking the long and demanding process that leads there.

A more practical way to look at it is this: passion is not what you like to imagine, but what you are able to repeat each day—even when no one applauds, no one notices, and the results have yet to come. If a job excites you only in the beginning, but you constantly find ways to avoid the tasks that follow, perhaps it is not truly the right path for you.

Here are a few simple questions you can ask yourself:

– Am I willing to do this for 2–3 hours a day, consistently, for several months?

– Am I comfortable with starting over, making mistakes, and receiving criticism?

– Can I continue even when no one acknowledges me, and there are no immediate results?

If the answer is no, then perhaps what you love is not the work itself, but merely the feeling of “becoming someone.”

Instead of striving to discover one ultimate passion, it may be wiser to find something you can stay with over the long term. Not something that excites you endlessly, but something you are content to repeat. Something that may be tiring, even dull at times, but not something you wish to escape from.

The Japanese have a concept called ikigai—the reason you get up every morning. The beauty of ikigai is that it’s not found in the final spotlight, but in the harmony between what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for.

That’s why, instead of chasing a glittering passion, learn how to choose something you can stay committed to in your most ordinary days. Something that soothes you, yet also fills you with energy. Something that comforts the heart, yet strengthens the spirit. True passion isn’t measured by the admiring eyes of others, but by how many times you patiently repeat the work when no one is watching.

May you soon find the ikigai of your life.