This quote is considered inspiring because it sells the idea that finding what you love and doing just that is the key to a comfortable and successful life. Unfortunately, there is no such thing.

We live in an era where blog posts, books and various social media platforms offer advice on how important it is to find your passion, dubbing it the key to success. A concept considered misleading.

Passion for what you do is a wonderful thing to have most especially when attached to the job you do or the career you’re pursuing. It most certainly adds vigor to your day and you’re most likely to do what you’re your passionate about enthusiastically as opposed to something you’re not. However there is a lot we tend to miss before we buy into this indication.

Firstly, the idea of following your passion tends to imply that because you love what you do, it’ll be simpler and therefore it is all you need to be successful. In his book "So good they can’t ignore you” Carl Newport emphasizes that building a compelling career cannot be reduced to just finding something you enjoy and love doing. It is certainly much more than that.

Take a good and observant look at the people that the world categorizes as successful and pursuing compelling careers. They most certainly did more than just love what they did.

"Outliers” a book by Malcolm Gladwell sheds more light on the life of world renowned billionaire, Bill Gates and how much time he spent practicing his craft before becoming as successful as he is today.

He didn’t just stop at just loving what he did and is most certainly isn’t the only reason he is where he is today. It took more than one thousand hours of practice for him to attain that particular level of success.

This is merely stating that passion is not the main contributing factor to success, it only makes the process endurable. Needless to say, this concept doesn’t only apply to just Bill Gates. Even musicians and artists who are expected to love what they do, in order for them to be great, have to invest hours and hours of hard work to get from just good to great. Top examples include Pablo Picasso and Mozart.  

Sometimes the idea of passion however thrilling, may come off as unrealistic. Just because I love something doesn’t necessitate that I be good at it. This brings in the notion of aptitude.

Venturing into something, a career or job based mainly on grounds of my love for it very well knowing that I can only score 4/10 in terms of aptitude is erroneous. 

There are also certain scenarios where aspects like experience and mastery are confused for passion. You’d be surprised to learn that passion in this case is only a side effect of many years of work that in turn give one autonomy, competence and relatedness which is what you later confuse for passion.

In the end, notions like "follow your passion” will still be shoved towards us repeatedly. Hence it is important to note that perceiving this as the only key to success could be hazardous. Success as epitomized by many today has very little to do with passion and more to do with hard work.

The author is a student at University of Rwanda, College of Science and Technology.