I love what you said here and could not agree more:
"Otherwise, it seems the only way to balance passion and stability in modern life is to seek seasonality, rather than balance"
This month marks my first year anniversary of quitting my career as an architect, and when I look back on the past year, it truly has felt like a season of living in passion. I started taking painting classes, wrote more, and even picked up baking as a side hobby. Before quitting, I couldn't imagine trading in the title, the salary and the benefits just for more "time to be myself," but now, it just feels like the obvious choice. All the things that I thought I would "lose" actually wasn't worth as much as what I gained now.
But to your point about Maslow's hierarchy, I am able to afford this season of my life because of the years I have spent building my physiological and safety tiers. As an immigrant myself, I grew up being handed a blueprint to my future, and it was my obligation to enact it for my family. Financial stability meant safety, and I carried that sentiment with me all through my years in architecture despite knowing this career was making me a miserable person. But it afforded me the ability to buy a car, a house. Have great health insurance, go to therapy. Build my savings and investments. I don't regret spending most of my youth setting up this foundation for myself, but I guess if there was one thing I wish I could change from my past, maybe it would be taking school less seriously and having more fun in general :)
Thank you for sharing! I completely agree that it's wild how you can go from not being able to imagine trading in title, salary, benefits, etc. for "being yourself," but then once you do... it's hard to imagine going back! I'm so happy to hear you've been painting, writing, baking... just living! May the fun times continue!!
Some very good musings. I relate a lot to what you’re saying.
I don’t know if the passion versus stability thing will ever be resolved, really. I see artists who left their full-time jobs to pursue their craft and now ironically spend less time making art because of the whole business side of being a full-time artist. It’s hard to not live out your dreams. But it’s also hard to live by your passions.
Completely. I think it was easier for me to stomach the thought of not living out my dreams when I thought there would be some landing area for "making it" and then being able to do whatever I wanted. But now I see the reality is more that life is just living every day and making this decision about what to do every day.
I find myself at exactly the crossroads you describe, but with an interesting twist. Currently I work in finance and have achieved Stability. But Passion for me is a career in law - specifically in antitrust enforcement. Luckily, that career change isn’t a huge sacrifice in Stability, but getting there is daunting! Going from stable income and no debt to no income and possibly a lot of debt is terrifying, but in a good, exciting way.
Don't downplay the challenge here--law school is still a difficult transition away from a full-time job in finance! Even the stablest of passions will be relatively unstable if you're moving away from Stability. I'm so excited for you though--best of luck!!
>There is a reason that law school applications are up 22.9% at ABA-accredited schools: periods of economic and social instability drive people to flock to career paths perceived as stable, such as law.
As one of those applicants, this post certainly resonated with me. I realized (or rather admitted to myself) midway through applying that I could not be less interested in law; what I would really like to do is be a historian and fantasy novelist, like JRR Tolkien or Ada Palmer. If I thought academia was even a remotely viable career path, I would have reversed course without a second thought.
But the reality is that, even at top universities, a humanities PhD is no longer a vocational degree. There is simply a vast excess of qualified scholars relative to available funding/market demand outside of STEM fields. Starting a humanities PhD now is like swimming 6 miles to board a sinking ship.
I'm hoping to gain some credentials, life experience, and financial stability through law school+a clerkship+a couple years of BigLaw, and gradually lateral to doing something more interesting. It's not my ideal path, but I'm not seeing a better alternative. Traditional academia is dying, and so is publishing outside of romance/erotica. But the Internet is simultaneously making it easier to reach and monetize an audience than ever before.
>The writer Elizabeth Gilbert writes in Big Magic that she kept her day job even when she was a published author
The bestselling novelist/lawyer Scott Turow did the same, much to the astonishment of his friends and colleagues. (As per his epilogue to a reissued version of 1L, his insightful memoir about HLS.)
I know you said you think a balance is not possible when choosing between passion and stability but two people come to mind when I think about individuals who've done that. One is Jimi Adesanya. By day he works at Goldman Sachs and by night he produces music videos for top Afrobeats artists and movies too. Another is Alex Okosi, who turned his desire to platform African music into a lucrative career as a media executive. So I think if you're lucky you're able to have the best of both worlds. Besides both Alex and Jimi use money from their real jobs to fund their passions. Jimi used his salary to fund videos for a lot of artists in the early days of the Afrobeats movement. He's literally like a modern day patron of the arts and his stable job allowed him to do that. Only sharing because you asked for an example of a job that can provide both and this is my submission.
Interesting! I just looked both of them up and am really impressed. I wonder if they are the exception or the rule, though? I'm curious about career paths in which the rule is more that you can pursue stability and passion at the same time (although the exceptions are always very inspiring!!).
Cece, I love what you wrote about how the classmate of yours that became a bestselling author (and now I'm so curious who you're talking about omg) is still gazing at you, wondering if she should've pursued your path! I never thought of it that way, that there could be people who threw themselves into their passions and are making it work financially (or at least seeming to) that still wonder, what if? What if I had tried something else?
It never really occurred to me to think of life in seasons and that, when it comes to striking a balance between pursuing passions and pursuing stability, there can be periods of your life where you spend more time ensuring your stability/physiological needs are met and then other periods where you spend more time ensuring your love/belonging/self-actualization needs are met. I have chronic health problems, so often I am forced to spend time thinking about how to ensure physiological needs are met so I can at do the things that let me pay rent and buy food, but it never occurred to me that this pendulum swinging between "what kind of work would make me happiest and how can I do more of it?" and "oh my god I need to start taking better care of myself and I need money and I need groceries" is something fairly universal. It's reassuring! It makes me feel like I'm not as much of a screwup as I think I am :)
Lastly, the jealousy you write about is So Real. I think a lot of the jealousy I experience in my professional life is because I spend so much of my time trying to ensure my stability/physiological needs are met that it's hard for me not feel jealous, sometimes to the point of anger, whenever I hear about someone who's gotten a into a PhD program I could only dream of or sold their first book or really just done anything I would kill to do but don't really have the finances to make work (why are PhD stipends so low my god, no wonder so many grad students have rich parents). But it's also a good reminder that, due to life circumstances and whatnot, of course I need to prioritize safety/physiological needs right now, and that I can get to a point where more of my worries center around the passion tiers instead of the survival tiers in the hierarchy! I am so fortunate to have the job I do so I can pay for healthcare without going into debt and still finance my favorite hobbies and interests (and my job is willing to pay for me to go back to school, so I can take classes I really enjoy too).
There’s so much here that resonates with me! When I was clerking, I took a graphic design class. I came home after the first one and cried because I felt like I had wasted the last ten years doing non-creative school. “I’m so behind,” I remember saying. That was really the impetus to get started.
I am also fascinated by the paths of creatives. In law school, I binged Design Matter interviews, looking for some guidance in how to follow one of these uncharted creative paths. I was so set in finding THE PATH, not realizing I just had to do the things and start figuring it out…
Anyway, I have lately chosen passion, but am always looking over my shoulder at the prestige I left behind. It can be really limiting to constantly think the grass is greener on that other path…🤷🏼♀️
Thanks for raising this topic! I have observed it’s under the surface of many in the profession.
Oh gosh... the coming home and crying because you saw something you loved is SO real. I attended a TV show premiere and came home and cried after talking to all the writers for the show. I'm glad you're taking time to listen to your passion, too, and know that looking behind at the prestige is normal!! I'm right there with you!
And totally about looking back at the prestige. Intellectually I know not to and then some days I let my guard down. 🤪 Cheers to paying attention to tears and turning that into action!
I love what you said here and could not agree more:
"Otherwise, it seems the only way to balance passion and stability in modern life is to seek seasonality, rather than balance"
This month marks my first year anniversary of quitting my career as an architect, and when I look back on the past year, it truly has felt like a season of living in passion. I started taking painting classes, wrote more, and even picked up baking as a side hobby. Before quitting, I couldn't imagine trading in the title, the salary and the benefits just for more "time to be myself," but now, it just feels like the obvious choice. All the things that I thought I would "lose" actually wasn't worth as much as what I gained now.
But to your point about Maslow's hierarchy, I am able to afford this season of my life because of the years I have spent building my physiological and safety tiers. As an immigrant myself, I grew up being handed a blueprint to my future, and it was my obligation to enact it for my family. Financial stability meant safety, and I carried that sentiment with me all through my years in architecture despite knowing this career was making me a miserable person. But it afforded me the ability to buy a car, a house. Have great health insurance, go to therapy. Build my savings and investments. I don't regret spending most of my youth setting up this foundation for myself, but I guess if there was one thing I wish I could change from my past, maybe it would be taking school less seriously and having more fun in general :)
Thank you for sharing! I completely agree that it's wild how you can go from not being able to imagine trading in title, salary, benefits, etc. for "being yourself," but then once you do... it's hard to imagine going back! I'm so happy to hear you've been painting, writing, baking... just living! May the fun times continue!!
Some very good musings. I relate a lot to what you’re saying.
I don’t know if the passion versus stability thing will ever be resolved, really. I see artists who left their full-time jobs to pursue their craft and now ironically spend less time making art because of the whole business side of being a full-time artist. It’s hard to not live out your dreams. But it’s also hard to live by your passions.
Completely. I think it was easier for me to stomach the thought of not living out my dreams when I thought there would be some landing area for "making it" and then being able to do whatever I wanted. But now I see the reality is more that life is just living every day and making this decision about what to do every day.
I find myself at exactly the crossroads you describe, but with an interesting twist. Currently I work in finance and have achieved Stability. But Passion for me is a career in law - specifically in antitrust enforcement. Luckily, that career change isn’t a huge sacrifice in Stability, but getting there is daunting! Going from stable income and no debt to no income and possibly a lot of debt is terrifying, but in a good, exciting way.
Don't downplay the challenge here--law school is still a difficult transition away from a full-time job in finance! Even the stablest of passions will be relatively unstable if you're moving away from Stability. I'm so excited for you though--best of luck!!
>There is a reason that law school applications are up 22.9% at ABA-accredited schools: periods of economic and social instability drive people to flock to career paths perceived as stable, such as law.
As one of those applicants, this post certainly resonated with me. I realized (or rather admitted to myself) midway through applying that I could not be less interested in law; what I would really like to do is be a historian and fantasy novelist, like JRR Tolkien or Ada Palmer. If I thought academia was even a remotely viable career path, I would have reversed course without a second thought.
But the reality is that, even at top universities, a humanities PhD is no longer a vocational degree. There is simply a vast excess of qualified scholars relative to available funding/market demand outside of STEM fields. Starting a humanities PhD now is like swimming 6 miles to board a sinking ship.
I'm hoping to gain some credentials, life experience, and financial stability through law school+a clerkship+a couple years of BigLaw, and gradually lateral to doing something more interesting. It's not my ideal path, but I'm not seeing a better alternative. Traditional academia is dying, and so is publishing outside of romance/erotica. But the Internet is simultaneously making it easier to reach and monetize an audience than ever before.
>The writer Elizabeth Gilbert writes in Big Magic that she kept her day job even when she was a published author
The bestselling novelist/lawyer Scott Turow did the same, much to the astonishment of his friends and colleagues. (As per his epilogue to a reissued version of 1L, his insightful memoir about HLS.)
I know you said you think a balance is not possible when choosing between passion and stability but two people come to mind when I think about individuals who've done that. One is Jimi Adesanya. By day he works at Goldman Sachs and by night he produces music videos for top Afrobeats artists and movies too. Another is Alex Okosi, who turned his desire to platform African music into a lucrative career as a media executive. So I think if you're lucky you're able to have the best of both worlds. Besides both Alex and Jimi use money from their real jobs to fund their passions. Jimi used his salary to fund videos for a lot of artists in the early days of the Afrobeats movement. He's literally like a modern day patron of the arts and his stable job allowed him to do that. Only sharing because you asked for an example of a job that can provide both and this is my submission.
Interesting! I just looked both of them up and am really impressed. I wonder if they are the exception or the rule, though? I'm curious about career paths in which the rule is more that you can pursue stability and passion at the same time (although the exceptions are always very inspiring!!).
Cece, I love what you wrote about how the classmate of yours that became a bestselling author (and now I'm so curious who you're talking about omg) is still gazing at you, wondering if she should've pursued your path! I never thought of it that way, that there could be people who threw themselves into their passions and are making it work financially (or at least seeming to) that still wonder, what if? What if I had tried something else?
It never really occurred to me to think of life in seasons and that, when it comes to striking a balance between pursuing passions and pursuing stability, there can be periods of your life where you spend more time ensuring your stability/physiological needs are met and then other periods where you spend more time ensuring your love/belonging/self-actualization needs are met. I have chronic health problems, so often I am forced to spend time thinking about how to ensure physiological needs are met so I can at do the things that let me pay rent and buy food, but it never occurred to me that this pendulum swinging between "what kind of work would make me happiest and how can I do more of it?" and "oh my god I need to start taking better care of myself and I need money and I need groceries" is something fairly universal. It's reassuring! It makes me feel like I'm not as much of a screwup as I think I am :)
Lastly, the jealousy you write about is So Real. I think a lot of the jealousy I experience in my professional life is because I spend so much of my time trying to ensure my stability/physiological needs are met that it's hard for me not feel jealous, sometimes to the point of anger, whenever I hear about someone who's gotten a into a PhD program I could only dream of or sold their first book or really just done anything I would kill to do but don't really have the finances to make work (why are PhD stipends so low my god, no wonder so many grad students have rich parents). But it's also a good reminder that, due to life circumstances and whatnot, of course I need to prioritize safety/physiological needs right now, and that I can get to a point where more of my worries center around the passion tiers instead of the survival tiers in the hierarchy! I am so fortunate to have the job I do so I can pay for healthcare without going into debt and still finance my favorite hobbies and interests (and my job is willing to pay for me to go back to school, so I can take classes I really enjoy too).
There’s so much here that resonates with me! When I was clerking, I took a graphic design class. I came home after the first one and cried because I felt like I had wasted the last ten years doing non-creative school. “I’m so behind,” I remember saying. That was really the impetus to get started.
I am also fascinated by the paths of creatives. In law school, I binged Design Matter interviews, looking for some guidance in how to follow one of these uncharted creative paths. I was so set in finding THE PATH, not realizing I just had to do the things and start figuring it out…
Anyway, I have lately chosen passion, but am always looking over my shoulder at the prestige I left behind. It can be really limiting to constantly think the grass is greener on that other path…🤷🏼♀️
Thanks for raising this topic! I have observed it’s under the surface of many in the profession.
Oh gosh... the coming home and crying because you saw something you loved is SO real. I attended a TV show premiere and came home and cried after talking to all the writers for the show. I'm glad you're taking time to listen to your passion, too, and know that looking behind at the prestige is normal!! I'm right there with you!
Ah! Yes! That’s it exactly!
And totally about looking back at the prestige. Intellectually I know not to and then some days I let my guard down. 🤪 Cheers to paying attention to tears and turning that into action!