The thing about this car enthusiasm hobby is that you can only kind of do things on the weekends. The workday is where you put in the hours so that you can afford the enthusiasm. But it can be a challenge because for five days out of the week, you’re kind of anxiously looking forward to the other two. And my brain just can’t comprehend forsaking 70% of a week, being unsatisfied.
I can see how some people’s enthusiasm is so great that they make the thing into their career. They cannot fathom only focusing on their passion two days out of the week. Life is too damn sacred to be miserable for any amount of time.
There are tradeoffs, of course. There’s a chance that you will lose the passion if your actual livelihood is dependent on that thing. How enthusiastic can you be about photography when an angry bride is yelling at your face? Or you might have to turn in an end product that isn’t completely satisfactory to your standards. Because you absolutely need a monetary return.
I don’t think the passion pursuers actually factor in the tradeoffs. Their guiding star is that they are so enthusiastic that they must do the thing. No exceptions. Life isn’t worth anything if they are unable to do what they love for every single day of the week. They just kind of naively pray and hope the money issue will figure itself out. Not a leap of faith, but an insatiable will to follow the heart.
Thankfully, or unfortunately, I am not enthusiastic enough about anything to make career-level moves. A boring 9-5 job is exactly what I want and need to fund the few hobbies that gets me out of bed on weekend mornings, instead of wanting to sleep in. That’s good enough for me.
More to the right.