At some point in the last decade, having a personality stopped being enough. Now you need a passion. Not just something you enjoy, casually, like a normal person. No, it has to be a capital-P Passion. Something you wake up thinking about. Something you could “talk about for hours.” Preferably something that can be monetised, scaled, optimised, and eventually turned into a personal brand with a muted colour palette and a semi-inspirational tagline. 

You can’t just like cooking anymore. You have to be “building a culinary project.” You can’t just enjoy taking photos. You’re “developing a visual storytelling platform.” You can’t just go for a run, you’re “training for something.” God forbid you just like things.

Because the moment you say, “I don’t really have a passion,” people react as if you’ve just admitted you don’t have a pulse. “What do you mean?” “But everyone has something!” “You just haven’t found it yet.” Ah yes. The Passion. As if it’s hiding behind your couch, waiting to be discovered between two Netflix episodes and a mild identity crisis.

We’ve collectively turned passion into this magical life requirement. Like, if you don’t have one, you’re somehow living incorrectly. Like there’s a hidden level of existence that everyone else has unlocked, and you’re still stuck on the tutorial. And to be fair, it sounds great in theory.

Find the thing you love. Do it all the time. Build your life around it. Never feel like you’re working again. Beautiful. Inspiring. Slightly unrealistic. Because here’s the part no one really says out loud: not everyone experiences passion in that intense, all-consuming way. Some people do. And that’s great for them. They have the thing, the music, the writing, the art, the whatever, that lights them up and pulls them forward. It gives direction, energy, and meaning. But others? Others just like stuff. Plural.

They enjoy things. They’re curious. They try different activities. They get into something for a while, then move on to something else. Not because they’re lost or uncommitted, but because that’s just how they operate. And yet, we’ve decided that this is somehow a problem. That if you don’t have one defining passion, you must be confused. Or lazy. Or “not trying hard enough.” Which is ironic, because in trying to force a passion, people often end up sucking the joy out of the very things they used to enjoy.

You start with something simple. You like it. It’s fun. It relaxes you. And then, almost immediately, the question appears: “Could I turn this into something?” A project. A side hustle. A brand. A source of income. A purpose. Suddenly, your hobby has KPIs. You’re no longer just doing the thing. You’re evaluating it. Measuring it. Comparing it. Wondering if you’re good enough, consistent enough, marketable enough. Congratulations. You’ve taken something that brought you joy and turned it into a performance. And now you’re tired.

This is where hustle culture pulled a sneaky move. It didn’t just tell us to work hard. It told us that everything we do should be meaningful, productive, or at least potentially profitable. Relaxing? That’s fine, but maybe you could optimise it. Resting? Sure, but have you tried turning it into a “wellness routine”? Having fun? Love that for you. Have you considered documenting it? It’s exhausting. Because it removes the one thing that made hobbies valuable in the first place: the fact that they didn’t need to lead anywhere.

Not everything has to be a stepping stone. Not everything has to “make sense” in the grand narrative of your life. Sometimes, things can just exist. You can read a book and not turn it into a review. You can cook a meal and not post it. You can go for a walk and not track it, optimise it, or reflect on what it “means.” You can just do things.

And here’s the slightly uncomfortable truth: for a lot of people, that’s enough. Not in a sad, settling way. In a genuinely content way. Because purpose doesn’t always come from a singular, burning passion. Sometimes it comes from a combination of small, ordinary things that, together, create a life that feels good. A job that’s fine, not soul-crushing, not your “calling,” just fine. Relationships that are supportive, interesting, and real. Activities you enjoy without needing them to define you. It’s not very cinematic. It doesn’t make for a great motivational speech. But it works. 

And maybe the real issue isn’t that people don’t have a passion. Maybe it’s that we’ve made “having a passion” sound like the only acceptable way to live a meaningful life. Which creates this low-level, constant pressure. Like you should be searching, optimising, improving, always slightly dissatisfied with where you are because maybe there’s something better, more aligned, more you out there. And sure, sometimes there is.

But sometimes. There isn’t. Sometimes you’ve already built a life that works, and the only reason it doesn’t feel like enough is that you’re comparing it to an ideal that was never meant to fit everyone. So, you keep looking. You keep questioning. You keep trying to manufacture intensity where there might only be quiet contentment.

And in doing so, you risk overlooking the very thing you were chasing in the first place. Because not everyone is meant to have one defining passion. Some people are generalists. Explorers. People who find meaning in variety rather than focus. People who don’t want their identity tied to a single thing. And that’s not a failure of imagination. It’s just a different way of being.

So, the next time someone asks you what you’re passionate about, and you don’t have a clear, impressive answer. You’re allowed to just, not. You’re allowed to say, “I like a lot of things.” You’re allowed to enjoy your life without turning it into a narrative. You’re allowed to exist without optimising every part of yourself into something that sounds good in conversation. Because, despite what we’ve been told, you don’t need a passion to justify your life. Sometimes, liking things is enough. And honestly? That might be the most underrated freedom we have.

With Love, Chaos, and Jazz. Always.