You May Never Find Your Passion or Calling

It's okay that you still don't know what you want to be when you grow up. Many people never find the "one thing" they're meant to dedicate their lives to, while for others it's seemingly intuitive.

Do you have a calling? Photo cred: Elena Koycheva on Unsplash

Here’s an open secret: I’ve never had a passion or calling. I almost never have an answer when people ask me what I do, or where I see myself in a couple of years. It makes for awkward conversations and more than a few white lies on job interviews. The world is seemingly not built for people like me, who have no Sovietesque five-year-plan, and goal-setting spreadsheets to go with it.

Until recently with shifts brought by the global pandemic, careerism has always been rewarded with a sense of stability materially and in identity. Try as I might, I’ve never been able to put my head down and stick to a single determined path, stability be damned.

From the moment we’re able to string together sentences in childhood, we’re asked what we want to be when we grow up. There’s a lot of fun had when we answer this question differently each time and keep our caregivers and parents guessing. Then we grow and the fun stops. The questions turn serious when as teens we’re asked about our university majors and where we envision ourselves as adults. Answering these can be exciting and fun still for all the natural-born specialists among us. But for everyone like me, it’s when our insecurity and a sense of shame set root and thrive until we find acceptance.

Expectations to find “the one” thing you’re passionate about as a young adult and turn that into a successful career for the rest of your life weigh heavy. It’s almost seen as a given that we’re all here to find “the one” calling, passion, and in some aspects, even person.

But what if you can’t find a calling? Does that mean there’s something wrong with you? Are you destined to be lost forever, alone and purposeless, stuck in a cycle of frustration because you can’t find your ‘destiny’?

If you’re reading this and you don’t have a singular passion, you’re in good company here. And there are more people now more than even who choose to be interested in and good at more than one thing.

So what happens if you just can’t find “the one” thing?

Honestly? Nothing much, if you’re willing to be brave enough to accept how you’re wired. Terri Trespicio, a branding strategist, asserts in her 2015 Ted Talk that “Passion isn’t a thing, it’s a feeling.” Looking at passion this way lessens the pressure to find one single thing to devote your life to. It allows you to embrace the many threads of ideas across industries and find innovative ways to create new things. To feel passionate about different things.

I’ve had my fair share of existential crises brought on by the feeling that I’m missing something vital in my life. That I need to find my North Star. And I looked for it in every hobby and interest I’ve had since I was a teenager.

In high school I was the person who couldn’t choose a stream of subjects that made sense. I wanted to dip my finger in every pie: music, technology, science and history. I just couldn’t pick because I had so many other interests outside of class. I was building a telescope, running an astronomy club, while singing opera and playing the double bass. I was also running an environmentalist club, while doing yoga and taking on leadership roles at school. And I was equally passionate about all the things I was doing. Instead of studying to get an A+, I would be reading until early hours of the morning and would settle for a B. I was doing so many things that I’d often be found cat-napping throughout the day.

A classmate once managed to capture one of my many naps that I’d become known for among my peers in high school.

But passion has always been ephemeral. And that pushed me to the edge of depressive episodes many times. Only in the last year, during my quarter-life crisis, did I spend months reflecting on why I feel so pressured to find one label to ascribe to my identity. A single label to encapsulate all my potential, rapacious curiosity, and varied interests.

Where not having a passion has gotten me

It was a relief to finally let go of that internalized expectation and just accept myself as I am. I’ve always been a person who finds a new hobby or subject, feels intense passion about it, dives deep and learns everything I can about it until I become good at it, then I hit glass ceiling and my interest in that thing begins to wane. Until I find something else, and the cycle repeats again. Because of this, I have cultivated abilities that transcend any single subject, talent or ability:

1. I’ve figured out ways of accelerating learning new things because I’m always diving into new interests.

2. I have cultivated a beginners mindset that allows me to be receptive to new information, circumstances and to find creative solutions to challenges.

3. I am able to adapt really quickly to new environments and situations because I often challenge myself by taking on multiple roles according to my interests.

It takes a while to be completely comfortable with being this kind of person. But accepting that I’m never going to find a single thing to be passionate about has opened me up to taking more risks when pursuing my interests.

Because that’s how I’m wired, to be greedy when it comes to saying my curiosities. And following a singular path makes for a lean diet for my voracious interests.

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Do you have a single passion or calling? Or are you like me, and can’t stick to one path for the rest of your life? Apparently there’s a name for people like us: multipotentialites.