At Laid Off Camp, an unconference for creatively employed and people in job transition, I facilitated a session on passion. Pretty basic question, “what are you passionate about?” Some couldn’t answer, they had no passion. WTF.
I raced back to Cohere, the land of the passionate (and opinionated, brilliant, creative and vibrant). I was a bit shaken to be confronted by someone who has clearly lost their will exert passion on the world. In an effort to regain the energy that had left my body in a desperate attempt to revive the passion-less person, I had lunch with Cohere member Lindsay on the “veranda.”
Here’s what we agreed on:
The general feeling out there (the population at large–specifically our parents’ generation) is that you have to suffer to get paid, work must feel like work and people are terrified to leave a paycheck to pursue a passion.
You NEED far less money and material goods than you WANT.
When we left our safe paychecks we gained more.