I found my passion by getting really pissed off. One day I was sitting at my windows xp box and I wanted to do something really stupid/simple. I wanted to change all the icons for a application so it would fit my theme. Long story short I ended up switching to ubuntu learned to program and learned more about operating systems and networking then I ever should have. Now as a software developer I find my passion is dri…
Ask HN: How did you find your passion?
41–50 of 89 posts
Re: Ask HN: How did you find your passion?
#42Re: Ask HN: How did you find your passion?
#43Re: Ask HN: How did you find your passion?
#44One part accident, one part research. I took a college class that cast a lot of light on things that I had thought were "normal" for people like me, but weren't. Then I researched what my options were for doing something with X that met Y parameters.
Re: Ask HN: How did you find your passion?
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not sure what to learn from this.
You may need two jobs for a brief amount of time. One that pays the bills. Another that drives your passion. Think of your first job as "bootstrapping" your second job. Just make sure the first job doesn't take so much effort that you have no energy left to do what you really want to do.
If Einstein hadn't been Einstein he may have failed in physics work and stayed a bored patent clerk forever. I bet this happened and is still happening to a lot of people.
Re: Ask HN: How did you find your passion?
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm same as you, but I'm actually getting tired of it. Everytime I encounter a problem, I start compulsively thinking in this direction, scaling it during the process, eventually getting frustrated about my inability to implement necessary changes.
I feel you. Food production is a big one with me right now and I've been drastically reducing the animal products in my diet and switching to less processed foods (black beans have become my staple). I find writing can help manage it a bit, in fact I just finished a piece on food production and indoor farming https://www.ryanmercer.com/ryansthoughts/2018/7/8/tackling-t...
Re: Ask HN: How did you find your passion?
#47My current after work hobby in an unlikely place. Precision rifle competitions. It's very scientific sport in nature - winning is pretty much about forecasting flight of your bullet, that involves lots of physics, statistics and controlling 10s of different variables. Recent king of 2 miles competition looked more like science olympiad: http://precisionrifleblog.com/2018/07/05/what-the-pros-use-k... .
Re: Ask HN: How did you find your passion?
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Remember this: Albert Einstein had a simple clerk position in a Swiss patent office. While working at the patent office, Einstein had the time to further explore ideas that had taken hold during his studies at Polytechnic and thus cemented his theorems on what would be known as the principle of relativity.
Einstein is not just another person, right? The man had amazing perseverance. Not everyone is like that. But I am genuinely curious to know how lesser known, and the more average kind of person deals with this. Because I feel like I might end up being in the same situation judging from my current progress.
On HN, I see lots of amazing individuals with great education, work experiences using "expensive" vocabulary.
I am not one of them. I was below average in school but "bootstrapped" my professional life using my personality and my imagination. I ended up creating something beyond my wildest dream.
Re: Ask HN: How did you find your passion?
#49Also, passion isn't just a burst of energy, excitement or full of woo-woo emotions. It's strategic, empathetic, intelligent, loving, strong, and actionable. Plus reading/listening to Start with Why is helpful AF! Much success to you on your journey!
resource: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17447384-start-with-why
Re: Ask HN: How did you find your passion?
#50One part accident, one part research. I took a college class that cast a lot of light on things that I had thought were "normal" for people like me, but weren't. Then I researched what my options were for doing something with X that met Y parameters.
Could you elaborate on this?
One of the classes I took was an online Environmental Biology class (possibly not the correct name of it). The big project for the class was to plan a residence in the middle of nowhere that didn't have existing infrastructure, like electricity and sewer, and how you would support yourself in the middle of nowhere. I immediately knew that half of my answer was "Build an Earthship."* This clued me that, no, not all homemakers are fascinated with alternative energy, passive solar design, etc as some means to save money and so forth.
I decided that quarter that I wanted to do something career-wise with the built environment. I pulled out a big book of college info on various universities in the US and scoured it for majors having to do with the built environment.
Architecture was on the list, but architecture programs generally are self-contained and do not take transfer credits of general ed classes. I would have to start completely from scratch.
Civil Engineering was on the list, but required multiple Calculus classes. Although I had a strong math background, I had dropped out of calculus my first quarter in college and never wanted to see it again.
I think there were about six or seven majors on the list. After going through all of them, I settled on Urban Planning as the degree program and career that interested me. Most Urban Planning degrees are Masters programs, not Bachelors. That fall, I enrolled in an online BS in Environmental Resource Management.
At some point, my life was derailed by a serious health crisis and divorce. I never completed my BS degree, though I did later get a Certificate in GIS (equivalent of Masters level work) and I moderated a planning sub-forum for a time that I founded on what was, at that time, the world's foremost planning forum. I currently do some volunteer work at a non-profit that is pertinent to this interest and I have a very part-time job with the same non-profit.
I don't know if this will result in a planning job (unlikely, since I have no driver's license) or exactly where I am going with this, so I didn't really want to get into the details because, in some sense, it is currently a failed dream. But I felt the basic model of "have epiphany, then do some research to flesh it out" might be a useful thought for some people.