Why passion is not a career
Our chief consultant writes:
At left is a busker, a singer who performs on and near Washington, DC Metro stations. He is very, very good. His voice is rich, powerful (he sings a cappella) and educated; his choice of material is largely classical. He should be subsidized by all the companies with offices near where he performs, because a couple of minutes’ pause to listen to him on the way to work will raise employee morale more than any possible corporate vision statement.
He may in fact have other gigs. Indeed, it would be a massive waste if he didn’t. But running into him reminds us of the many areas in which people can be passionate and skilled, as well as hard-working and dedicated, and still not make a living. You can do what you love, but the money will follow someone else.
None of our consultants here at Five Colors S&T has any real experience in the performing arts, though of course we had the required music classes in school, as well as the canonical drama in English class. A little contact with the world (going to small-theater Shakespeare, listening to live music in smaller venues) impresses us with the precariousness of that sort of work. The theaters are always looking for donations, the singer-songwriters worrying about getting another booking. And these are the successful ones, those who are getting paid, if only for the moment. There are plenty with skill, dedication and that vastly overused buzzword, “passion,” who are not successful. This is nothing new: “And all the stars/that never were/are parking cars/and pumping gas.”
At the same time, those who are successful can be very successful indeed. Movie stars and the most popular singers are notorious for how much money they can make. The combination of a few very successful people and many, many not making a living at their passion also appears in sports. Professional football, basketball, baseball: the number of people on these teams, paid more than most workers can contemplate, is tiny compared with the number on even the top-ranked college teams. I think we may presume that the latter are also passionate, dedicated and skilled.
What about professional lacrosse, fencing or water polo? Well, yes, there are areas lacking the conspicuous top level. We’ll include also a number of academic fields. The number of paid positions available translating cuneiform, exploring medieval literature, or even tracing the motions of galaxies is strictly limited. There are plenty with passion, skill and dedication who must find something else to do.
Often that means teaching. That’s certainly a way to stay in the field somehow, and generally allows one to pursue the passion after a fashion. Grading sophomore English papers is not quite the same as comparing the texts of sixteenth-century poets, though. Most important, teaching is a different skill, one that does not necessarily come packaged with the primary area, and you may not in fact have any passion for it.
So what is our advice, now when thousands of college students are starting or continuing their education and worrying about a job? Nothing so inspiring as the slogans you’ll find in self-help or business books. Take a realistic look at your chances in the field of your passion. If you have to roll box cars to make a living, you might wind up disappointed. Having a backup plan is not a sign you lack passion.
But if Five Colors S&T becomes a great financial success, we’ll certainly try to sponsor something to make use of the underemployed passion, dedication and skill we see around us. Perhaps we should host a repertory theater company, or put on concerts by our Metro singer. What do you think we should do?
