Can we really follow our passions, or are we too f*cking tired? Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Forwarded this email? [Subscribe here]() for more
[Everywhere I Go, People Are Burned Out]( Can we really follow our passions, or are we too f*cking tired? [Ash Ambirge]( Nov 29
Â
[READ IN APP](
 Everywhere I go, people are burned out. (GOD, DO I LIKE âBURNED OUT,â OR âBURNT OUT?â BIG DECISIONS.) My friend B was here last night. Total babe. Has everything going for him. Except, heâs burned out. Been working for the same company for the past 10 years. Feels dead inside. But, doesnât know what else to do. My friend A said the same thing. Ready for a career change, now that heâs 40. ButâŠwhat would he do? My other friend, E, feels similarly. âIâve been working my whole life and have nothing to show for it. Whatâs my passion? Whatâs my thing? If only I had some direction.â I hear some variation of this every day. [In my work teaching people]( how to set up joyful remote businesses they can do from anywhere in the world while actually loving their life (bye-bye social media, hello villa in France!), the biggest challenge is not âhow to set up a remote business.â Itâs this: but, what do I want to do????? Thatâs because if youâre t.h.i.s.c.l.o.s.e to saying â[frig it, Iâm taking the dog & going to London]( (a wonderful book about a grown-up gap year away from your husband) thatâs not the time when you want to keep being an accountant. Big life changes prompt big career changes. Just like you wouldnât remodel half your kitchen, you donât want to remodel half your life. But then there is the all-pressing question: Whatâs my pivot? Nowâs the time for me to âfollow my passions,â but what if I donât have one? This is the grand sticking point. This is where forward motion gets coated in tar. And, you know what happens when youâre covered in tar? You canât see whatâs right in front of your face. You canât see the forest through the trees. You canât see your own potential anymore. The more time passes, the more irrelevant you feel. Useless; washed up; like last weekâs chicken liver. It feels a little silly, trying to âbecome something youâre notâ at an age when most of your peers are finally able to afford a BMW. And a house with fucking wreaths. And an endless supply of those subscription vitamins only rich people can afford. (Not to mention health care.) It feels a little juvenile, galloping off to âthrow awayâ your life and reinvent yourself. Thereâs a shame here. Itâs almost humiliating. The people Iâve talked with seem embarrassed by their own ambitions. Maybe thatâs because they arenât labeling it as ambition: theyâre labeling it as failure. As I wrote in my book, [THE MIDDLE FINGER PROJECT]( Somehow quitting feels shameful, as if something is wrong with you, rather than with the thing you tried. But thatâs like going to a restaurant and ordering the duck nards, only to discover that you actually hate duck nards. Does that mean somethingâs wrong with you? No, it means you go to a different restaurant. This is a call for us all to go to a different restaurant. If you donât like whatâs on order in your current life, itâs time to make a reservation elsewhere. That is called ambitionâeven if it doesnât look like ambition. What is ambition, if not a commitment to your desires? In order to be committed to what you want, you must be uncommitted to the things you donât. In this way, quitting is still a form of ambition, just badly branded. Quitting has a PR problem. If it were up to me, Iâd advise everyone on this planet to quit now, and quit often, and start again, and again, and again, and again. This is how Iâve been able to find my own self, as Iâve evolved and changed. This is how you figure it out. Or, as I like to say: Finding yourself is a process, not a pony ride. You must start things without knowing if youâll finish. That, right there, has been key for me: letting go of the need to finish. To have all the answers right now. To try new things without an attachment to the outcome. To be SURE that something is a smart decision. (Says the girl poking a screwdriver [into an electrical outlet]( You know what I think? We need to stop trying to make so many âsmart decisions.â And start focusing on making good ones, instead. Smart decisions are the ones based in OH-SO-SENSIBLE logic: the reasonable, the rational, the practical ones. Theyâre the âI have a background in X, so it makes sense for me to do Y.â Theyâre the âIâve invested so many years into my career, it would be a shame to give it all up.â Theyâre the âthis isnât really what I want to do, but it seems like the practical way forward.â These are the decisions our parents taught us to make, the decisions our teachers taught us to make, the decisions society has taught us to make. The decisions our fear has taught us to make. âTHAT. Good decisions, on the other handâwell, these are the ones you really want to make. The ones youâd do if you could do anything. The ones youâd do if life were a blank slate. The ones that make you excited to think about. The ones youâd do if you werenât too embarrassed by all the things âwrongâ with you: your age, your inexperience, the fact that you may very well have to take ten steps back. Good decisions are the ones that feel good to make. That seems obvious when I say it like that, doesnât it? But, it surely isnât obvious when youâre covered in tar. Instead, itâs easy to convince yourself out of doing anything that brings you joy, because in our Puritan-esque third circle of hell, joy feels irresponsible. But in order to figure out what you love, you canât take the love part out of it. It must be essential to the thinking. Logic has no place when it comes to passion. And, thatâs what weâre talking about here, isnât it? - [This telephone repairman,]( who worked in the industry for 25 years, now designs womenâs shoes. (I LOVE THIS.) - [This medical receptionist]( left her âperfectly normalâ office job to become a female locksmith. - [This restaurant manager]( became a food writerâŠand then went on to have a Netflix show. None of these were practical decisions. They were instinctual ones. Andâââthere is something to be said about respecting your own instincts. Maybe what we really need to do is drop the P-word altogether: passion. That word is daunting, isnât it? It gives us this almost unattainable standard; this expectation that, unless you are the happiest youâve ever been, ever, ever, EVER, it isnât a true passion. But, Iâm starting to wonder if passion is really just interest, branded well. Perhaps a little too well. Sometimes âfinding your passionâ feels a little pedestal-y, like going on an interview with Anna Wintour at Vogue. And, thatâs intimidating as hell. What if we all just committed to doing what interested us this week? And then the next? And then again, the following? Thereâs no pressure if youâre just dabbling. And dabbling, my dear, is perhaps one of the most courageous things you can do, for it takes spunk to try new things. It takes nerve to enter a new room. And it takes pluck to ignore everyone who thinks you erratic, scatterbrained, flighty. But, the dabbler has one thing going for them that most people donât: They arenât covered in tar. Maybe itâs not about finding âyour big passion,â but rather being committed to sampling many. After all, life sure is full of wonderful restaurantsâand I want to try them all. --------------------------------------------------------------- Leave a Comment Are you currently in the midst of âfinding your passion?â What have you discovered? What advice would you offer? Iâd love to hear from you in the comments! -Ash [Leave a comment]( The Middle Finger Project with Ash Ambirge is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. [Upgrade to paid]( Youâre currently a free subscriber to The Middle Finger Project with Ash Ambirge. To get all of my posts & chat with me in the comments, upgrade your subscription. [Upgrade to paid](  [Like](
[Comment](
[Restack](  © 2023 Ash Ambirge
177 Huntington Ave Ste 1703, PMB 64502
Boston, Massachusetts 02115
[Unsubscribe]() [Get the app]( writing]()