“Passion is a consequence of effort, not just a cause. It’s hard to enjoy something when you’re not good at it yet.”
In an episode of his fantastic podcast ‘WorklLife,’ organisational psychologist Adam Grant unpacked the concept of ‘following your passion’ as career advice and concluded that it may be more helpful to think about ‘developing passion’ instead.
That passion for something can grow through mastery and progress, and that we may abandon potentially fulfilling careers if we give up too early, not giving ourselves a chance to progress.
I agree with all of the above, but it did get me thinking, what are the implications of technology for this advice? For example, when we see sufficient advancement in VR, (and I mean real advancement, like, the holodeck on Star Treck advanced)? When we can try on ‘being good at something’ to see if it’s something we might then want actually to pursue? Could this avoid countless wasted hours moving towards a goal that would ultimately be unfulfilling? Or would it still be a poor proxy for the effort of striving, overcoming and improving?
What about concepts like Neuralink, (and beyond)? Brain-computer interfaces so advanced that they circumnavigate the bandwidth problem of learning and effectively grant us access to all the worlds information (and potentially skill) on-demand? If we could just ‘know’ how to fly a helicopter or become a Kung-fu master, what then for passion development?