Over winter break, I took a trip to the Catskills in Upstate New York and found myself in a cozy cafe with a charming bookstore attached to it. On one of the display counters was the book 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think by Brianna Wiest. I had seen this book on TikTok before, and thought that its bold title and minimalist aesthetic cover lent it to be more of a decorative dust collector than a thought-provoking, philosophical book. However, when I flipped through the table of contents, one essay title out of one hundred and one convinced me to give it a chance: “Why Logical People Lead Better Lives (In a Generation Where ‘Passion’ Is At A Premium).”
Recently, “passion” has been a buzzword that I haven’t been able to escape. Especially being in the whirl of college admissions this past year, having a passion seemed to be the key to being admitted to some of the top universities in this country. “Let your passion guide your application.” “Show admissions officers that you’re passionate about your major.” Maybe it’s just that, as an 18-year-old girl, I’m not truly passionate about anything yet, but those suggestions never really resonated with me. Sure, I have hobbies that I really enjoy doing, people that I love a lot, and subjects I’m super interested in studying, but do any of those really qualify as a passion? Do I have a singular interest that motivates me to get out of bed in the morning, at which I work hard every day, that brings me endless joy? That’s what I thought it meant to be passionate about something, and I never felt like I had it. I just felt average. Passion felt like something I couldn’t achieve, a glass ceiling I couldn’t quite break through. I started to doubt that without a passion, I wouldn’t be able to achieve my goals. So when I read this essay title, I felt like this book could hold some valuable insight to change my mindset on what it means to be passionate.
“It’s not about following passion; it’s about following purpose passionately.”
Brianna Wiest
In this essay, Wiest reinforces the idea that passion is a transient feeling that lacks the substance upon which to build a realistic life, while logic is more grounded and reliable. The first point that she makes is “Passion tells you that you should go after what you most want in life, but it’s never about ‘what you want,’ it’s about what you want most.” While this wording was a bit confusing at first, she clarifies that with competing desires, you must be able to prioritize the desire that will bring you to your goal, rather than the most intense one. Right off the bat, I resonated with this quote. Reading this was the first time I heard someone tell me that it’s okay to not be zealously pursuing some lifelong dream, and the obligation I felt to be chasing a passion began to dissolve. She claims that “the passion narrative says you should strive for a life that maxes out your wildest dreams,” and therefore, “keeps you in a place of assuming your life is ‘less than’ because you’re doing what you think is ideal.” She goes on to say that “logic tells you to max out your potential, which ultimately gets you to the same place that passion could only have you (keep) dreaming of.” In two short sentences, Wiest summed up the exact mindset I have been stuck in for the past year, and reassured me that a lack of passion doesn’t guarantee an unfulfilling future. She reframed passion as something that could end up being more detrimental than advantageous.
I can attest that after reading this book, at least one of the essays has changed the way I think. It’s not that I believe passion is a useless feeling, but it’s not the guiding light I once looked up to. I’m putting less arbitrary pressure on myself to find a passion and focusing more on the concrete steps I need to take to achieve my goals. And if passion follows, then great! I don’t want this to sound like people who are following their passion are going in the wrong direction. I’m surrounded by a lot of successful people who are undeniably passionate about what they do. But if you’re anything like I was and doubting yourself because people are telling you that you need a passion and you haven’t found one yet, I hope this gives you some reassurance, because you’re not alone.