
Passion Is Overrated - akbarnama
http://www.businessinsider.in/Dilbert-creator-Scott-Adams-illustrates-why-goals-are-for-losers-and-passion-is-overrated/Dilbert-creator-Scott-Adams-illustrates-why-goals-are-for-losers-and-passion-is-overrated/slideshow/46246132.cms
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PhasmaFelis
The headline is kind of stupid and clickbaity, but the points he makes are
100% correct. I'm not sure why there's no discussion here yet.

Millions of hungry artists and musicians and philosophy majors can tell you
that "do what you love and the money will follow" is utter bullshit, and it
doesn't take a genius to see why. So it is weird how so many obviously
successful people keep repeating such a pants-on-head stupid platitude. I
wonder if they've actually just never considered that there are lives and
experiences unlike their own, or if they subconsciously shy away from
narratives that don't make them the most awesome person in the room.

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rohunati
It's only correct if you are following your passion to achieve some other end.
If it's means based, then everything this guy says is completely wrong. Under
a means based approach, you wouldn't care about great fame/recognition,
because, for instance, painting everyday and being a community college arts
teacher to support yourself is sufficient to make you happy.

I do agree 100% with what he says about systems vs goals.

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qiqing
When someone asks me for this wisdom one day, I'll tell them I'm just lucky,
but lucky in this sense: [http://lifehacker.com/5791032/improve-your-luck-by-
relaxing-...](http://lifehacker.com/5791032/improve-your-luck-by-relaxing-
keeping-an-open-mind-and-paying-attention-to-the-world-around-you)

~~~
FrankenPC
That's a great article. Side note: I used to do some amateur track racing when
I was younger. I noticed that the more hyper-focused on the "line" I became,
the poorer I did from a time perspective. But when I opened up my vision to
peripheral information and took in the whole track in addition to the line, I
could make better and more appropriate decisions. Long story short: stress can
lead to myopia (tunnel vision) and lost opportunities if you're not careful.

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hackaflocka
1\. If you find your work boring, and don't make enough money at it, then quit
and find something that either makes you money or stokes your passion.

2\. If you find your work boring, but you make plenty of money at it, then
find side-passions.

3\. If your work stokes your passion, but you mooch off other people to make
ends meet, it's not a great way to live.

4\. It's easy to be passionate about something. But will you be able to
sustain the passion for years? Through the ups and downs, and the late-nights
and the disappointments?

5\. Here's my list of top resources that helped me understand the importance
of habits, long before this excellent slideshare by Scott Adams.

[http://tempr.org/54e03ee74f60d.html](http://tempr.org/54e03ee74f60d.html)

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saurik
Watching an actual talk (as opposed to a slide deck optimized for reading,
which is arguably a paradox ;P) is much more fun, especially given that this
is much shorter and mostly a teaser of the concept that Scott Adams talks
about in more depth.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJVxkr9eE9A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJVxkr9eE9A)

~~~
Samus_
that was fantastic, the contents of the talk were really interesting but the
presentation itself is among the best I've seen so far.

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rukuu001
This is the guy that popularized affirmations, in which he wrote his goal down
15 times every day for months on end:

"I’ve often written about my own experiences with affirmations, the practice
of writing your goals 15 times a day. It seems to work much of the time, at
least in my experience, but presumably not because of any magic. At least one
probable explanation for its perceived effectiveness is that focusing on goals
changes the person who is doing the focusing." \-
[http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/the-...](http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/the-
secret.html)

~~~
misterlocke
The article you're talking about is written 7 years ago, so it makes a lot of
sense that he learned and improved his thinking over that time and now he has
sone new (and maybe better) ideas.

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afarrell
I gave up on the idea of following what I thought of as my passion (studying
military history) as a profession in high school because of writing anxiety. I
picked up programming because it was usually enjoyable, but the only passion I
have about it is seething hatred for terrible UIs and poorly-documented
nondesigned APIs.

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extc
Non-spammy version: [http://www.slideshare.net/Scottadams925/goals-are-for-
losers...](http://www.slideshare.net/Scottadams925/goals-are-for-losers-
passion-is-overrated)

