HealthyGamerGG - What Is Passion

Episode Date: April 6, 2022

Today Doctor K talks about what "passion" means, how to find your passion, and how to harness it! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You do four years of high school, then you go to university, then you get your degree, then you go to the internship, then you get your job fair, you go to the job fair, you get your job, you start as a junior analyst, then you become an analyst, then you become an associate, then you become a senior associate, then you become a vice president, and then you become a director, and then you become a managing director, and then you will be happy. Board the train. Everyone's telling you to board the train, but there are no fucking train tracks anymore. It's like what we need today is ATVs, but the generation that came before us was all boarding trains. Go to college. You'll be fine. Go buy a house. After two years of working with a bachelor's degree.

The world used to be railroads and train tracks, and now it's all ATVs, baby. Okay, this is great. Dr. Kay, what the actual hell is passion. So hi, Dr. Kay, Healthy Gamer Community and Team. First, I'd like to say that I really enjoy this content. in the digital space to be in and share my issues and problems as I see that they are pretty common within a lot of people. It is truly virtuous. Thank you. You're most welcome and thank you for posting. My question right now revolves around the idea that passion, your dream job, as we culturally use

in the Western world at least. The idea of finding and pursuing your passion is this work subject that gives you so much motivation that makes work feeling like it isn't work as Confucius would suggest. It is called Ikigai in Japanese culture. What is your current idea around this figure? I suspect that there are a lot of myths and misconceptions around this idea, or at least this is what my experience suggests to me. We tend to form this idea as if there is an actual and only work field that is so perfect for us that would give us all the power within us to perform and succeed like we would enter a super-sayan berserk mode in an anime world and let us obliterate. every obstacle we find in our way for this work. What a great description, right? My current

understanding of mental health suggests that it is not a good thought process. It seems like a very hedonistic thought. Also, if you think of it logically, it doesn't make much sense either. Let's say I love basketball, which I do, and that is my real passion, and since I am in 2022, that is very convenient because basketball is pretty accessible right now. But if I had lived a century ago, I wouldn't even have had basketball. Would I have had to settle then and live life miserably? I don't think so. I ask you this because I find myself very confused right now, and I feel like I have no passion or I don't find anything sufficiently exciting to pursue. I think there are a lot of fascinating, interesting things in my field of study and other hobbies

that I have, but nothing puts me in a situation of being satisfied. I'm not that interested, much right in basketball as a profession. And I'm investing to be a trainer focused on posture and health. And I have a lot of interest in making content around it and even want to do gaming content. But I don't feel a drive for actually embracing it with force and determination. I'm doing it because I feel that it is my best bet right now, knowing my values and interests. I believe that you could give us a lot of insight on the topic. thanks in advance and much appreciation.

Really fantastic question. So the first thing that I'm going to comment on is the question itself. And I think the question is actually a sign of how far our community has come. So if you look at a lot of the questions, especially early on, in both our community and the rest of the internet, what people will ask is how do I find my passion? right so you'll have like some interview on some like Stanford like Stanford business podcast or whatever right you'll have some like podcasts in like a fancy place like a TED talk or something like that and then you'll have some expert who has accomplished things with a capital A and then the interview

will ask them like how do you find your passion like how did you discover your passion like that's about your passion they'll be like oh yeah like you have to like grind 24 7 like boss babe like you know whatever they'll give some answer And then we all walk away with this idea that there's this thing out there called my passion. And this is a beautiful description of it. And it's like once you find your passion, once you find it, everything becomes easy. Work doesn't feel like work. You have so much motivation.

You enter this super saying mode where you're like, you're grinding, man. It's like so like you can't stop working and like, you know, you're burning out because you're so passionate about it. and then all the obstacles fall away. So we have this idea that there's this thing out there and that passion is something to be found. Right? You get an infinite buff beautifully put. It makes all the hard things easy.

And so we start seeking for this thing. And then like we find one thing that we're kind of interested in, but we don't turn into a super saying. So we're like, oh, that's not my passion. So we keep looking, keep looking, keep looking for my passion. Where's my passion? Where's my passion? Where's my passion?

Is this my passion? Is that my passion? Oh, then what happens to someone uses this term Ikegai? And then they read books on Ikega and how to find Ikega. And then they go look and they go look and they're like, oh, there's this thing. There's flow state. There's Confucius. There's Ikigai. This guy and this TED talk was talking about finding your passion. And so we go looking for this mythical super sane state. And then we don't find it. And then we start asking lots of questions, right? So this is actually the right question. Let's start by defining it. Not forget about finding it. What the hell is it? What is this thing that we call passion? How does it work? What are its dimensions? What are the laws of physics that govern passion? Right? What are the equations? Is it something that's found? Is it something that's discovered? Is it something that's built? Is it a temporary state? Is it a state of mind? Is it a physiological thing? Like, what is it? Because once we understand what it is, then we can figure out constructing it or how to find it. but the first question is like, what is it?

Okay? So what we're going to talk about today is a couple of different things and a couple of the different problems that we run into when we are looking for our passion. Okay? So the first thing that we're going to start with. Okay? So I was about to say how to find passion, but that's incorrect.

That's the default question. We actually don't want that one. We want what is passion? Okay. So here's the first thing, is that there are a couple of, there are three major problems that we run into when trying to answer this question or find our passion.

Okay? The first is that we equate passion with a career or a job. This is mistake number one. So here's the first thing to understand. So when I start to think about my passion as a job or a career, let's think a little bit about what passion is. Let's think a little bit about being human.

So over here, we have a human being. So if we want to understand passion, the first thing we have to understand about human beings is that human beings are individuals. Okay. So there are a lot of different things that make you, you. Right? So different people have different interests, different fulfillments. So what you find fulfilling may be different from what someone else finds fulfilling, right? And then they also have different circumstances. As this person points out, like their passion is basketball. But if they lived 200 years ago, does that mean that they just live a miserable life? Is the reason that like so many people in our community are miserable is because they were just born in the wrong era? Is that so you just S.O.L? because your passion is underwater in-space basket weaving.

And since underwater in-space basket weaving doesn't exist right now, y'all are just doomed to be unhappy. So the first thing to understand is that individuals have all of these things that make us tick. Right? So what makes me tick? What I get excited about? Well, I can see if people are getting caught off in that. The underwater in space basket weaving is feeling

everyone, is that what your real passion is? Well, then make it. Pave the way for the future, for all of the people who are left out and feeling directionless in life. So individual, so like passion, first of all, well, we're not going to say passion yet, but let's start by acknowledging that what makes human beings tick, what we're attracted to, what we're interested in, what we find enjoyable is going to be individualistic. Now, here's the problem, is when we look at a career or a job as a source of our passion or a way to make our passion a reality or whatever, careers and jobs in education, that's the third big thing, right? So people will look for their passion through education.

The problem is that these are institutional. What does that mean? So what's the job? What is the goal of a university that's trying to teach you how to code? It's not individual at all. In fact, it's the very opposite of individual, right? It's like cookie cutter. Here are the 15 courses you have to take first year.

Here are the 15 courses you have to take second year. Here are the 15 courses you have to take third year. And then you get some choice in the fourth year. So institutions are cookie cutter. In that way, jobs and careers are cookie cutter too. Like if I go work as an analyst in an investment bank, or I work as a junior dev in a AAA game studio, or I work as a junior dev in an indie studio,

like these people, like there's a job description, right? There's nothing individual about it. These are like the characteristics that we're looking for. This is what it's going to be. So the first problem that we run into is that we equate passion with job. And jobs, careers, and education tend to be institutional and cookie cutter, whereas we are individuals. So the first thing to understand is that this is a fundamental disconnect. You are not going to, I mean, you can sort of, we'll talk about how to find your passion in a job and stuff.

But the first thing to understand, this is the wrong place to look because you're never going to find your passion in a job because a job is cookie cutter and generic and you are not. Okay? Second problem that we run into is that we think about passion as something that is found. Right? So like, oh, find your passion. We even use the word. Find your passion. I found my passion. For five years, I was spinning in the wind and then I found my passion. I discovered hybrid taxidermy from extraterrestrial beings. And I take, I travel to different continents and worlds and I take different animals and then I like stitch them together to make weird hybrid things. Right? This is my passion. And then before that, I felt like I wasn't even alive. So there's this idea that passion is found. And this is important

because this implies that passion is external. You all get this? It's external. Because if you find it. Then it's like something you're looking. Oh, I majored in this and I wasn't able to find my passion. I went to this job. I wasn't able to find my passion. I looked over here. I talked to this person. You're looking externally. Whereas as we sort of mentioned, passion is individual in nature. So the other thing about finding passion is that it tends to be both an internal journey and an external journey. And we'll get to that a little bit more. Okay. So if you're looking for your passion, it's not going to be kind of like. like, you're not going to find it lying somewhere, right?

Like, you're not just going to like, it's not going to be like a random drop from, you know, some kind of world quest where it's like, oh, I'm going to go here and I'm just going to walk in the door and I will eat, I will see a cookie on the shelf and I will discover, oh, my God, my passion is to be a baker. I just, I had this cookie and it was so amazing that it transformed my life. Right? So you can't like a 0.1% passion drop. You can't check the loot table and things like that.

So this is where passion is both an internal and an external journey. So, like, there are external things we have to look for, but I want y'all to think a little bit about, you know, passion comes from within. This is also something that we say. It's kind of true. So it's like both internal and external. And what I'm going to talk about here for a second, if you guys caught this, is we had a lecture on burnout recently. And burnout is a really, really good example of a hybrid internal external phenomenon. So this is what we're sort of discovering.

I don't know that we've even discovered yet, but I'm seeing this for sure, is that a lot of the unhappiness that we have where the individual meets the workplace is a hybrid unhappiness. There's an internal component and an external component. So, for example, we know that a discrepancy in values creates burnout at the workplace. So when the individual values one thing and the company values another thing, this is what leads to burnout. Now, what a lot of people may say is that, okay, what you should do if you're a person is just move to company number two that is more aligned with your values. Whereas I would say it actually goes both ways. You can also modify yourself into person number two that can be more

aligned with company values, right? So there's an internal component to change, and whether you want to do that or not sort of depends on you. I'm not saying you should always align with company values. but for example, like if you're just a lazy ass and your company wants you to do a certain amount of productivity, it's not the worst thing in the world to become more productive as a human being. It's not just like an endless pursuit for a company where you can automate your job, which is if we want to do that, then go for it. My point is that there's an internal change and there's an external change. Another, maybe a better example of this is control.

So this is where another source of burnout is the discrepancy in control between the person and the company. company. So the company may control too much or it may control too little. As a human, you may need more support structures. You may need like, you know, more guidelines, more like, you know, structure around you. So if there's a discrepancy between control between you and your company, sometimes you have to adjust your own appreciation of control or your comfort for control, or you have to find a company that's better suited for the way that you want to be. It can be both. Right? You can adjust yourself or you can adjust yourself or you can can adjust the external world.

So when it comes to finding your passion, what we're going to talk about is actually the same thing. We're going to do both. So this is the third thing that we run into in terms of defining passion, is that there are a lot of dimensions to what I would say your passion is. So if we think about passion, it's sort of this idea that it's fulfilling, it's naturally motivating. there's an intersection between internal and external.

So these are the qualities that we sort of think about when we think about passion. But now, as we start to get more precise, what we start to discover is that finding your passion or having a job or a career that's fulfilling involves a lot of different dimensions. And when I've worked with people who, I would say, have found their passion, what they've really managed to do is align a lot of these dimensions. to be like congruent. So I'll give you all an example. So the first dimension I would say is spiritual. And what does that mean? That means that if you want to find your passion or define what passion is, you have to do some amount of like internal work. So there's some amount of like deep internal work

that you have to do. And what does that mean? That means that like you can't just watch YouTube videos all day and find your passion that way. Like I don't think that's going to work. You have to ask yourself like what is it that gets me excited about life. And you, you may say, like, your default mind is going to say, I'm not excited about anything, but that's incorrect. As a human being, I don't buy that there's nothing that excites you or has, nothing has ever excited you. So this is where you have to, like, look back, like, okay, what did truly excite me? Like, when did I feel fulfilled? When did work feel easy to me? So as you start to ask those questions and start to introspect, you may be surprised at what you're

not considering when you ask yourself that question. So I'll give you all just a simple example. So I was working with someone who has a very famous cooking endeavor now. And so they were like basically a nobody. And then through social media and these different content creation platforms, what they really realized is that they love like experimental cooking. So like they weren't happy about their job. They weren't like, and even socially they weren't really great at it, you know, doing like different kinds of work.

and stuff like that. Like, they just weren't, they weren't really happy socially. They weren't happy professionally. But what they really love doing is, like, making complicated food for friends. And even the friends, like the most social engagement that they had was when they were making complicated food. Okay. And so then, like, what they sort of like, and as we were talking about, they're like,

okay, what really excites you? And they're like, well, I love like, I love like hosting dinner parties, basically, right? Where I'm like making cool and experimental stuff. And so they were like, but that can't be a job, right? and it's sort of like, well, I don't know if it can be a job, but why are you letting that restrict you? Why don't we just talk about like, okay, how can you do more of this? So if you do this, like, what would it feel like if you did it once a week? Oh, it would be absolutely amazing.

Okay, so then let's think a little bit about like, okay, if you wanted to do it once a week, what's getting in the way? So we started to operationalize things out. How can you monetize it? Can you do it once a week? How much does it cost? Do people need to pay for it? We started working through all those details. But it started with this deep internal work of like, okay, what actually satisfies me?

then what we have to think a little bit about is the neurological component and these are sort of like arbitrary things that I kind of made up but this is where if we look at our brains our brains are wired in different ways so some of us love routine oh sorry so like what's kind of dopaminergic for us right what makes us tick so what gets your like dopamine neurons like kind of going like Do you want a job that's kind of like problem solving, right? Like, or do you want something that's like, you know, more routine? Like, what is it that makes you like your brain tick? Like, do you like creative work or do you like problem solving work?

Like, do you like to create things like write a book or make music? Or do you like more about like a tinkerer? Right? So like some people have like a personality or a brain that likes to tinker with stuff. Do you like to take things apart and put them back together? Is that what makes you? you tick? Or do you like to draw things from scratch? Right? Like what kind of brain do you have? So, and this is where a lot of times people sort of recognize, oh, I like math. Well, what do you like

about math? I like math because it's orderly. And I really like things that are order. I want to understand how the human brain, like how things work. So there's sort of like a neurological component about just what makes your brain tick. What gets you excited? This is a little bit different from the spiritual side about like what's fulfilling. This is like, what does your brain enjoy occupying itself with. Okay? Then we get to the physiologic. And what do I mean by physiology? So this is also sort of like a term that I'm kind of tossing out there. But if you look at different people's physiology, some people are geared towards routine, whereas some people are geared towards like being more dynamic. Okay? Some people really like working 24 hours on call. So I'll have some

physicians who are hospitalists. And these people will work for one week and then they get one week off. Right? So it's one week on, one week off. I've worked with people who are like engineers on oil rigs as well. And they really like their lifestyle because they're there for two weeks where they like work a ton and then they like take a helicopter home and they get to chill for like two weeks at a time. So what is your physiology? What is your like daily routine like? What kind of workflow do you like? because here's the interesting thing is that even if you look at something like a standard job, if you have the wrong kind of physiological circumstance, it's not going to go well.

So a good example of this is writing. So let's say that you do this and you decide, okay, writing is fulfilling to me. And then you kind of figure out, okay, I like creative work. I like to write. But then the way that you write could be drastically different. Some people want to find a cabin in the woods for a month

and like bang out 100,000 words. whereas other people are like it has to be four hours a day every day. And as you select for something like a job, if you pick the wrong physiologic routine, or the wrong physiologic thing, dynamic versus routine, you could be screwing yourself by doing that, right? So if you're not sort of adapting to the body that you have, are you an early riser, are you a late riser,

how does your job work? Is it for people who are early rises? Is it work from home? Is it freelancing? Like, what's the situation there? So you should also think about this dimension. And the last thing is what I would call kind of environmental. And the key thing here is you should think a little bit about the social nature of your job.

Or, you know, what is your reporting structure? Do you like to work in a team or do you like to be freelance? Right. And so the key thing here is you all may say, well, what does this have to do with your passion? So remember that, like, passion is about work that's fulfilling and naturally motivating. The key thing here is that let's say you want to be a writer. if you don't have some of this stuff aligned, you're going to have difficulty with your motivation.

So if you're at the cabin in the woods doesn't work well for you because you get super distracted and you end up procrastinating and stuff like that, you may need something like a writing group, right? You may need to work closely with an editor who keeps you on task with deadlines. So what are sort of the environmental circumstances that you need for your passion to kind of flow properly?

Is it dynamic? Is it routine? Is it social? Is it teens? Are you a freelancer? Like, all of these dimensions matter a lot. And this is what I find people miss. Because what people sort of look at is they'll look at one of these components. Oftentimes, these two are the only two that they sort of look for. And then they try to find the right job.

And essentially, what people will do is they'll hunt for job after job after job that aligns these things kind of naturally. And they find their dream job, which naturally aligns with, like, their four settings. your environmental setting, your physiologic setting, your neurologic setting, your spiritual setting are all the line. And if you find that job, then you luck out and then you found your passion, and then you start going and giving TED talks about finding your passion. And then other people listen to your TED talk and they try to do the same thing, but it doesn't work for them because they didn't stumble into the right formula for themselves. So finding your passion is really about,

first of all, understanding yourself and then thinking very, very specifically about how can I construct a situation for myself where through introspection, I figure out what is the situation I need to make in the first place, and then cultivating that over time. So passion is not binary. You don't just find it. It's cultivated over time. So I'll end with a simple example, which is myself. So any guesses what Dr. Kay's passion is?

What do you all think my passion is? What do I love? what's down here for me? Anyone know? People are saying Dota, wow, teaching. Incorrect. Incorrect, incorrect, incorrect, incorrect. Talking, memes, coaching, compassion, all wrong.

Here's my passion. This is what I love. More than anything else, stories. Right? So you wouldn't even know it looking at me. but this is what I love more than anything else in the world is stories. It's the reason I love fiction. It's the reason I love video games.

It's the reason I became a psychiatrist. What's the tie that binds? Like, why do I, like, love talking to people? It's because I love their stories. I love, like, stories. That's what I love. I read bedtime stories to my kids. I read different kinds of mythology.

Like, what I love more than anything else's stories. Now, here's the tricky thing. If I love stories, you're not going to think. think. So, like, early on, what I was thinking is, okay, I'll become an author. Right? Or maybe I can become a game designer. Or what I ended up doing as being a psychiatrist. But these are all three different professions that are drastically different. They all have stories. Right? So, like, why do I love Eldon Ring and the Souls games? Because the stories are amazing and so opaque. Right? Or, yeah, sure, I could become streamer. My point here is that the job is very different.

from what actually like motivates me. Right? And then you can actually develop a job that is like built on your motivation. So what are the things that I sort of discovered about myself? The first is that I tend to work more if people show up.

So if left to my own devices, I'm going to just start gaming. But if I have like an appointment, if I make appointments from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., I can work eight hours, like easy. If someone shows up and I just talk, it like, you know, if I get to help them, like, that's cool. I can do eight hours of appointments, no problem. Easy. I can work 80 hours a week. No big deal. I can do 24 hours of call. As long as,

like, I'm learning about people. Right? And so author was hard for me because I wasn't self-motivated enough. So I didn't have like this kind of environment structure and physiologic structure was like hard for me as an author. And so the key thing here is that you can, you know, no matter what your passion is, you can construct it a lot of different ways. So don't lock yourself into an institutional approach to finding your passion. Oh, you have to major in physics, so you have to do this. Even something like psychiatry, like, okay, let's like talk about something else. Right. So this is why I'm super lucky, yo. Okay, so what do I love? So psychiatry is like helping people, presumably. But I like esports. So if I love esports, am I SOL if I'm a psychiatrist, is the only option here.

People may think, okay, pro player, streamer. Right? Like, those are my options. Well, it turns out that you can actually be a psychiatrist for an e-sports team, which is pretty freaking cool. So don't restrict yourself based on, like, jobs. Forget about the job for a second. Right? Like, because, like, this is the cool thing about the world is that it's evolving very rapidly.

And here's what I firmly, firmly believe. if you want to be successful, we're not talking about success here, we're talking about fulfillment. But generally speaking, it's my belief that the world rewards value. So if you bring value to the table, you are more likely to be rewarded. Okay? Now, here's the other thing. Let's just think about it logically for a second. If you care about something, if you're passionate about it, it's easier to give it 100%.

And if it's easier to give it 100%, you're going to create more value. If you create more value, there's a greater likelihood that you'll be successful. And so what a lot of people will say, they'll say things like, don't make your passion your job. It'll kill it. If you're passionate about a particular thing, don't ever make it your work. And I think that's sort of a near-sighted approach because it presumes way too much. It presumes, first of all, that you have a job. It presumes that, you know, like all kinds of things.

So, like, a good example is, like, people will love piano. But if they become piano teachers or they become professional pianists, like, they're not, you know, like destroys it because there are all these other elements that you don't like about it. You love cars, but, like, don't necessarily want to drive Uber. Like, that's totally fine. So be careful a little bit about some of this, like, general advice, because I think what you should do is bring value to the world. Generally speaking, you'll bring the best value to the world if you yourself are passionate about something. And then what you have to do is be very. very, very critical about this kind of stuff. And don't lock yourself into a job too easily.

Because if your passion, what you'll really discover is that your passion is like more deep. And it's not quite as crafted. It's a feeling. Right. And then depending on what your passion is, there are a thousand different directions you can take it depending on the circumstance. So the person who's saying, I love basketball now. Am I screwed? You know, if I was born 100 years ago, I don't think so. Because I think if I had a conversation with that person, it's not like they're in with the basketball itself, it's that there are certain qualities of basketball that they really enjoy. They're going to be qualities. So I've worked with professional, like, NBA players, for example. We talked to them about why they love basketball. It's about mastery. It's about competition. It's

about setting your mind on something and then getting better at it and better at it and better at. It's about playing against a particular playing and getting a player and getting crushed. And then the next day going to game two and destroying that player. Right. These are the things that actually motivate them. And it just happens to be basketball. I think the manifestation can be whatever. Right? So this is where, like, if you want to find your passion,

I would say break things down into these segments. What really makes me tick internally? What do I care about? What is my brain like? Right? Do I like problem solving? Do I like creative work? Like, what makes me, like, tick mentally?

What gets me kind of excited? Like, what can I get lost in? And then that's not enough because you can't, just jump straight to a job, then you have to start to ask yourself, like, physiologically, like, what kind of circumstance do I need? Do I want to be in commercial real estate or, like, you know, do I want to be like, do I want like a nine to five where I like go and I, people give me a list of stuff to do and I just kind of bang it out and then I get to go home? Do I want to be like, you know, what kind of work life balance do I want? And then environmentally, do I want to work with people or

do I want to work alone? Do I want to be a freelancer? Like, where are all the dimensions of this kind of stuff? And the more of these kinds of things that you align towards yourself, the more you're going to reduce burnout. And there's an inverse relationship between burnout and passion. Right. But the thing that burns people out is like this kind of crap. It's these two dimensions, oftentimes. It's like, oh my God, like I love writing, but I hate my editor. And so I'm going to be burnt out.

And now I hate writing. And now I'm going to be one of those people who says, if you have a passion, keep it your passion and don't ever make it your job. Whereas like if you had a better editor, your whole story would be completely different. Okay? So finding your passion is like somewhat of a complicated process. And it starts with defining it, which is perfect. This is the perfect question. And as we define passion, we sort of think about it as something that's fulfilling, that feels natural. Hopefully if you move towards it, I'm in support, by the way, of like, you know, making your career aligned with your passion. It just requires nuance. Like, people just don't do it carefully. That's why I think

they struggle. And then as you think about all the dimensions that let passion flow, and you construct those dimensions for yourself, then you will sort of start to enter something like Super Sane mode. Now, the thing about Super Sane mode is that it's fragile. People think about Super Sane mode is very resilient. I kind of think about Super Sane mode as like surfing. We're like, yeah, there's a huge wave, but you have to balance it very, very carefully to maintain that degree of awesomeness. And what it really requires, super sane mode is a flowering. It's a blooming of all the circumstances aligning properly. And so what people don't realize, and they think like, oh, I've got to be more hardcore, I got to be more hardcore, I got to be more hardcore, and

then it's going to be super sane, and I'm resilient to all obstacles. It's actually kind of the opposite. If you think about your optimal function, it doesn't happen in suboptimal circumstances. right? Actually, your optimal function happens in the right circumstances. And so as you craft those circumstances for yourself, as you start to realize what really makes you take, as you construct your life, then you will find your passion. Right. And this is the thing, for people who are saying, like, my dream career, like this is not, the dream career is what you make of it, right? Like, there are so many different dimensions out there.

And if you think about what you actually do day to day, they can be wildly different, but you can have one, you know, core thing. Like, you can love video games. Like, let's just say, like, let's say I love video games. There are all kinds of things you can do with this, right? Sure, you could be a developer. Even then, you could go AAA. You could go indie. You can be one of these people, like, who makes, you know, Axiom Verge or Undertale. Like, you can just solo it. You don't even have to work for anyone. It's all kinds of weird indie studios out there, right? Like, Super Giant is a great example. But then you could also, maybe you want to be like, you know, a writer for IGN or something like that. Right? Like, I'm going to just work for a company that pays me to play video games and then I have to, like, write reviews for them. Or what you can do is be like a streamer, right? There's all kinds of stuff you can do if you love video games.

You can even do something like you can become a physical therapist. and work with a team. Because there's the thing, I love Dota, but I'm 1800 MMR, chat. There's no way I'm ever going to be a professional Dota player. It's just not going to happen, nor doesn't need to. The reason that we think it needs to is because our view is too narrow. And when we start to tie in a particular career to our passion, I'm not saying you shouldn't develop a career from your passion.

But we try to take this individual thing that is our passion. This is the crux of the problem. we try to take this individual thing that is our passion and we try to cram it into an institutional career and in doing so we screw ourselves like GG but you can absolutely construct for yourself something that is fulfilling

and that is aligned with who you are that is fantastic right so someone saying what if I can't I love motorsport and can't be a driver. That's my point exactly, is that motorsport, if you think about all the people who do things for motorsport, are all of them drivers? No, in fact, like 1% of them are drivers or less.

Right? They're all the other, like, organizations, the tournament organizers. Maybe you can organize something. That's the other thing. So a friend of mine is also super into e-sports. Loves e-sports. Sucks at the game. So what are they thinking about doing?

organizing a charity tournament. Right? There's so much stuff. Someone's saying, review cars on YouTube. Like, that's the cool thing about the world today is there is an unprecedented

amount of freedom for how you make a dollar. Like, 2,000 years ago, the way that dollars didn't exist back then, but the way that you secured food and shelter for yourself was like narrow.

Like even my grandmother. I was talking to my grandmother the other day. She grew up in a village, of like 200 people where everyone is a farmer. It's like you don't have choices. You can't do anything except for be a farmer. Only option.

Now it's like even with video games, you can be a professional gamer. You can be a streamer. You can be a reviewer. You can be just like a content creator. Right? You can be a gold farmer. There is an unprecedented amount of freedom. And the problem is that we may think that that's a good thing, but it's actually a huge problem.

Why is it a huge problem? Because we don't know what to do with unprecedented amounts of freedom. freedom. Because we've been raised in societies that are so damn institutional. You do four years of high school, then you go to university, then you get your degree, then you go to the internship, then you get your job fair, you go to the job fair, you get your job, you start as a junior analyst, then you become an analyst, then you become an associate, then you become a senior associate, then you become a vice president, and then you become a senior vice president, and then you become a director, and then you become a managing director, and then you become a partner, and then you will be happy.

board the train everyone's telling you to board the train but there are no fucking train tracks anymore it's like what we need today is ATVs but the generation that came before us was all boarding trains go to college you'll be fine go buy a house after two years of working

with a bachelor's degree the world used to be railroads and train tracks and now it's all ATVs baby and we have not realized this fundamentally. And so then there we are like looking at across the water and we're like, wow, that water looks really great. I really love that water. Let me board this train and see where it takes me. Then we're all packing onto these trains that are going absolutely nowhere. So the ability to handle choice has become atrophied in our society. And we see this like in our

dating, for example, like online dating. It's like 10,000 people out there. And has that made dating easier? No, it's made things harder. Right? It's like how many like, oh my God, like I'm so bored, there's nothing to play. Have you seen Steam? So we become paralyzed by choice because we don't know how to deal with it. Because more and more, like not only are our institutions railroaded, even fucking video games are railroaded. Right? And then every now and then we get a breath of fresh hair like Eldon Ring that doesn't have quest markers. And I was like, this game is hard. This game's sucks and like everyone loves it because that's what human beings like. I'm going to play Eldon Ring the way I want to play Eldon Ring. I'm running around naked with a club because that's

what I want to do. Right? Quest markers do this, do this, do this. So if y'all are struggling, I get it, man. It's it's tough. Like I don't think we appreciate how hard some of the challenges this generation faces. Human beings were not designed. We have not evolved for this many choices. You just think about the animal kingdom. We're not that different from like chimpanzees, right? Or even dolphins for that matter. Like most mammals are like pretty similar. Like what choices does a dolphin have? Our brains have not evolved to deal with this much choice. And technology is exacerbating this problem. What do I do with my life? It's incredibly difficult to deal with. And then like we don't cut ourselves any slack, nor do we get empathy from or compassion from other

people who don't even realize that like it was easy for people before. I'm not saying that there aren't things that have gotten better. There are a lot of things that have gotten better now. Right? Like what I'm saying is like this is overall it's a net advantage. You just have to learn how to take advantage of it. Overall, it's like friggin' amazing. It's sort of like high risk, high reward. So, yeah. I ranted there for a minute. New meta. That's the best way to put it. it's absolutely a new meta. And you can't just use the old strats in the new meta. Yeah, so any chance that playing a lot of video games blinds us to our passions, absolutely.

So here's the key thing that a video game does. It does not cause you to internalize or introspect at all. So what video games do is they take your mind and they externalize it towards a particular thing and they keep it occupied over here without any effort for like a period of hours. and so there's no sense of like internal exploration with a video game. All it is is like that straight dopamineurgic stuff without like any of the other stuff. So I think that's part of the reason that we're getting disconnected from our passions because we don't know how to look within anymore, right?

I'm not saying they're bad. I like them too. I play. I played Lost Ark yesterday. You know, that's okay. Probably played a little bit too much, TBH, but. you know that's all right