Follow Your Passion Is Terrible Advice 

👍💙 very honest and well said.

​​@Adrian Garcia i think a dream of an ego means a fantasy, a "dream". For example, you want to become a singer, but all you do is daydreaming, thinking and talking about it, and not putting actual effort to make it happen. True passion, on the other hand, is a calling (like the video explained).

What happens when all you have is your ego’s dreams, so you don’t really like anything? Apart from sitting and have your brain getting overstimulated with colourful images and videos on the internet. 🤷 Doomed!

@@foxesintheattic been looking for an answer to this for a while. I don’t care about really anything or have passions for anything either

@Adrian Garcia For me it was wanting to become a researcher not because I'd enjoy the process of getting into work each and everyday but because I wanted to make that one great discovery

wise words, Rio !

I was following the path of regret, but now I decided to follow the path of discipline. I know I have lost many years regreting myself but now its time for a change.

The pain of taking risk and achieving great tomorrow, Or the pain of mediocrity from following ur passion

I get both lol

Eventually ur going to quit 👎 cuz u can't be disciplined without purpose.

Well said

To add on, the Philosopher Alan Watts implied and exemplified that, “as we go deep deep down far far in,” we discover more of ourselves because we become more connected… how do we learn ourselves if we do that same thing we like over and over again when we have this essence of a need of an adventure, or cycle of the hero we all have.

Facts, that thing happened in my life

a ruling passion might become a passing passion

No one is suggesting to just solely follow your passion and boom done you are good - no it means follow your passions to use them as tools of reservoirs of positive energy, follow your passions does not mean to exclude yourself from any and all other experiences, follow your passions doesn’t mean to cease exploring new activities it means START WITH your passions use it as a starting point

See and I find this to be very dangerous advice. The world changes fast and sometimes the goal we chose to achieve isn't what we thought when we get there 5 or 10 years later. Instead we must have passion (yes passion is the right word) for the progress. Not the end goal. It is the journey we should love. Not the destination. You might die in 2 years. And you spent it miserable working towards a goal you don't even know you'll enjoy. Instead, enjoy the process and you'd die happy today, tomorrow, 10 years or 100 years from now.

Well said ​@@this_mfr

Exactly 💯

Im not sure this was his advice. He clearly mentioned "being drawn, love something, sense of destiny, not just discipline. At least that was what I got from it.

" patiently suffering towards my dream " love it 👌

So you must be really passionate about that something

me too!

Do you really need to suffer to reach a Goal?

@@h1ghnezz yea if its a decent goal suffering is probably inevitable. Anything ive ever done that was really worthwhile was hard and a struggle for me to overcome myself, mentally and physically. Right now im working 12 -14 hour days non stop without a day off in sight, getting up at 3-430am and my dreams are in sight. A new Chapter!

Same for myself. Passion comes from the heart. Follow your heart.

This is the whole purpose of life. Working hard to get to a better place, the place that feels like home. That's what I'm passionate about. Where can I see myself settled in peace with my family? That my vision, that's my passion.

@Frenzy What I need for you to do now is write down on a piece of paper your plans to do those things and put them up everywhere. So you are reminded everyday of your goals of where you want to go in life. That way you can keep feeding it positive energy everyday and never give up and soon you will be there!

@Frenzy be patient with yourself sometimes you're playing can change and you have to make minor adjustments. You'll get there buddy.

Passion will see you through. This guy needs a dictionary

Everyone not ment to find their passion and everyone not ment to be successful in life that's why only 2% are successful cuz they follow their passion.

I agree; Robert is truly a brilliant thinker.

I was a fan too and he's right about some things. But in the end he's really just another new age eat shit embrace the suck posterboy of a fascist system. Intellectual is right, he is one, but intellect is not intelligence.

It’s because he sees through the bullshit of the world and gives us the truth

@@JohnnyWalkerBlack142 good point. I hadn't thought about him in that way. We certainly need a whole lot more of Robert Greene.

Can you summarize what he said in this video

I believe Joseph Campbell said it best "follow your bliss"

But he did say do something you love.

He literally said follow your love/meaning. That’s basically what passion is. He’s conflating passion and pleasure.

i wouldn’t say “Chase” either, because to chase something means it’s running away from you. you have everything you need within you, so the best word choice is “Attract”. once you start preparing, an opportunity will arise in your life that is attracted to your current position and state of mind. The Law of Attraction is real, and Robert’s videos are some of the best examples of it

Cuz he don't like the word passion so he replaced with love and bliss 💞

Can't hurt me !

David goggins has so much passion in what he do, but he don't admit it and everyone can't be like him, his advice is terrible and not healthy.

Fantastic comment and I feel similar.

Well Said sir.

How did you figure out your passion?

@@dwaejishan well, it may be totally different for each of us. My path started early during my adolescence, when I was definitely convinced that I was a lazybones and would never tolerate working for money. So I started wanting to figure it all out and find out what would make me feel motivated every day, regardless of weekends or weekdays. Soon I started to have dreams related to my vocation (drawing, which I exercised since childhood), but I didn't even realize that those dreams were the answer at that time. I realized it only later on, after I actually found out my talent. Eventually, of course, I needed to find a regular job, work only for money, get depressed, drunk etc. But I was all the time aware that it was just a temporary situation, and I would not be able to go too far with that. Out of this stance, I was determined, almost obsessed, with finding my true passion. So there are some tricky aspects to this quest. First, we tend to expect fireworks and huge missions in life, whereas our passion may be related to something way simpler than we expect. I always have been talented in playing instruments too, so for a while, I thought music was my path. But soon I noticed that I wasn't able to play the same piece or song multiple times without getting weary of playing it. So I decided it wasn't possible to follow that path. Then the obviousness was perceived. I had always been drawing and appreciating nature since my earliest days in childhood. And art and illustration started to show up in my life more frequently, triggering the hidden passion. I wanted to learn and perfect my skills for drawing, and nature and biology were tightly related to all of that. It's important to pay attention to our first aims that come from childhood, I think. But as I said, it may be the simpler way, not the fancier. During childhood, we want to be astronauts, soccer players, famous musicians or singers, but actually we spend our whole day sculpting miniatures in wood or rock, and not studying astrophysics, training soccer or whatever. So it's all about that simplicity- the kind of engagement that makes you lose your sense of time, that you just cannot get weary of. Usually, all of us have it all figured right away since childhood and even now, but we resist accepting it because it looks so unimportant, simple, even childish... but as we become masters in it, people will come from all over the world to learn from us or have a piece of our creation.

Hey @RogérioLupoArteCientífica I really liked your comment, and I was wondeirng if maybe we could actually talk about passion, as i'm facing a hard decision, and would love your opinion in 1 area regarding if if i do my passion for money, will it "hurt" my passion. Maybe we could tlak on here, but if not, then maybe i could exchange some sort of contact details with you and we could talk more, if you were open to it. What do you think from what I've said? Have a great day :)

Do something related. My aunt wanted to be an astronaut, but besides being female, she had a childhood injury that limited her mobility. So she became a chemical engineer at NASA. She got to be around astronauts and help them fly.

I am in the same field and I have to watch people doing want to do everyday while they rub it it my face enjoying their careers and making good money. I wish I wasn't in the same field, that makes it even worse.

How are you now? I can relate. I wanted to be an optometrist as I have a chronic pain condition in my eyes and now I'm trying to become a psychologist!

Yes i see your point. Perhaps it is better said, Follow your passion but do not rely on passion to do the work.

I think the liability is on the word "passion", and I think that is what Robert is trying to get at. I think that for some people all of their preferences and feelings and perceptions align so closely (namely what they find fulfilling and interesting is so clear) that when they report these things back to us, they do not think the distiction is important and they confuse the rest of us. Ultimately, we use the word 'passion' to refer to something as if we had a strong crush on that thing not realising the word hijacks and obscures what we actually find fulfilling. When you say the word 'passion', we infer you are to some extent or another emotional about the activity. One would not find anything wrong upon hearing Bezos or Musk say they are passionate about their business. Yet, I would venture to say that when you see them or picture them making a business call, you don't picture them frolicking and smelling the roses along the way. You'd picture them being clinical, almost robotic. It is going from A to B to C. Again, you know this, whilst you also know that if NBC did a piece on them and they said the word "passion" you wouldn't bat an eye. The problem is that people are conflating terms: the curiosity or the stir or pulling of your intentions and actions towards an activity, and then in turn, there's your cognition on those things happening. When you look at it this way, it makes sense. Bezos and Musks are not robots or zombies. They put up with 80 hour weeks 50 weeks a year because there is a pull that makes them pick a phone and make the call, but the have done away with the idea that there is something else at play. There is nothing to romanticise. They just do it, they don't rely on feeling connected. They haven't mistaken the idea for the thing. Now, this doesn't mean I don't believe you when you say photography and music have been your passion/calling/vocation. I really do. I do think you must've felt something when taking pictures or playing music. I do not doubt it for a second. As you look back, you probably see yourself practising your scales trying to get them right, or you probably remember peeople's faces when you started playing their favourite song, or those days you planned to practice with friends and ended up having a great time. In order to tie it all up nicely you may use a catch-all term, and 'passion' seems to do the job after all you have emotions, and good ones at that, about all of those things. But actually that's only hindsight. You sat down to practice to get better not because you romanticised it, but because you felt a 'pull' to do it; and then again, and then again. And as you got better, you likely eyed up other instruments you wanted to learn. And then again with photograhy, and framing, and different cameras. You moved across a discipline, but I would argue that it was never about how you fixated on it. It caught your attention and then something else about it caught your attention, and then something else... You could say "well, that whole thing happening is what I refer to as 'passion'". And I would say that is my point exactly because if you say that, if you fail to make the distiction, that is when someone else will end up confused. You feel a pull, but then it becomes something else, and then you get annoyed or fustrated, and you quit, and you realise you were just fustrated and try again, or quit entirely... but to call it 'passion' as if it was just this homogenous thing is just confused and you confuse other. People that refer to it as 'passion' will almost exclusively refer to it in positive terms as if it admitted none of these which we all know must come with feeling passionate (e.g. fustration or annoyance). You have done it yourself in your comment: you call it 'passion', you make declarative statements that read like "there's that". Again, why be confused? Why refer to something so vivid like a desire to learn to do a drum roll with a vague word like 'passion'? Especially when we know that it will then be something else, and then something else, and then something else. For a process so profound and constantly-unfolding, 'passion' feels incredibly hollow. Fulfillment seems more fitting, it just doesn't have the romatic ring of 'passion' - and there in lies perhaps the whole argument.

Perhaps the definition of the word has some grey area, but I wanted to reply to what you said as I too am a photographer and musician! I shoot surfing, have since childhood. I stayed on course, sacrificing so much to follow what I knew (and still know) is my true calling. Now I am 58 years old, and it is common for people to walk up to me on the beach and comment on how lucky I am to live doing my passion. Although I do feel SO fortunate, and thankful, it always makes me cringe. A few times I have been perfectly honest and explained that standing on the beach with a camera is not my passion. Surfing is my passion...and playing music..and getting on the pottery wheel. I would not want to do any of those things for my job...I love my job. If I didn't do it it would make me miserable. Robert hit the nail so squarely on the head here, I have never heard that perspective explained but for me it is spot on.

That’s really what it’s all about tbh. Even people that do something they considered their dream end up calling it work anyway. Just gotta do what you know you can do and appreciate it really. I feel that passion is the same as motivation. Motivation is temporary, but it’s the discipline that gets you to the end point. Passion is like love, you feel it in the moment then it subsides. But working at it with discipline will grow that love and continue it.

U don't feel pain instead u enjoy pain and suffering when u follow ur passion, u put hours and hours without even realising it, but hey everyone not ment to be passionate and everyone not ment to be successful in life that's why only 2% succeed in life..

Painful in the sense of finances

Couldn’t agree more.

It also makes us deify our suffering

Dang this hit hard…

It’s also social media’s fault for programming young minds to think this way

Thank you for listening, watching, and reading.

@@RobertGreeneOfficial No. Thank you Robert. You have taught us all so much. I love your work. What you say and how you say it, truly gets to the heart of the matter. I’ve learned so much from you, and continue to learn so much. Thank you for everything.

Thank you for this. I needed to hear this just as much as I did the advice in the video. I’ve been placing so much importance on finding what I’m passionate about that it’s probably not good or healthy for me. I think the ultimate goal is to not have regrets, or to make the choices you can best live with. The “answer” to life will be different for different people. Mr Greene felt he couldn’t live without going after his calling, you on the other hand excelled without making one specific thing your life. I think it’s just that people are different, and their wants and needs are different. I have a lot to figure out. Thank you for this perspective stranger

I have. Took me years to find it again, albeit in a different form, through a different opportunity. Now the task is to unlearn all the bad habits and plug at the thing I know I'm destined for every day. It sucks, but it can't be worse than where I was.

Not personally, but I have met several people who experienced it. Surprisingly, it was often a knee blowing out, for one person on his way to a tennis career, for one woman who wanted to be a ballerina, for one girl who was a track star. One knee injury later, poof. The shock to the system is of the same magnitude as losing a loved one.

I like this perspective, because it shows that the passions are still extremely important even if they aren’t your one true calling. I have a handful of things that I’m somewhat passionate about, but I know they aren’t my calling. However, those things give me that feeling of “meaning” even without them being my career or what I dedicate my life to. Thank you for this