04/23/2024

The Trouble with Passion

Data suggest your career shouldn't be the source of your passion

AHP Note: Every so often I get a great pitch for a guest interview and hand the Culture Study reins over to someone else (usually a reader who *gets it*) to handle the interview (and get paid for it, of course — your subscriptions made it possible for me to pay significantly above the going industry rate, which is really, really awesome). This week, Tyler Burgese interviews sociology professor Erin Cech about her work on *passion jobs* — something anyone who’s read my work knows I’ve been thinking about for years. Enjoy, and if you have a spectacularly good idea for a future Culture Study interview, you know where to find me (aka, my email: annehelenpetersen at gmail dot com).

Now, here's Tyler:

If you do what you love, the saying goes, you’ll never work a day in your life.

... I’ll admit that I had a hard time typing that with a straight face. Was it ever that simple?! In reality, tying something you love doing directly to your financial stability is logistically and emotionally fraught, to say the least.

Please select this link to read the complete article from Culture Study.