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A Painfully Simple Guide To Following Your Dreams

Passion isn’t easy

Steve QJ
3 min readAug 25, 2020

“God, I’d kill to feel more passionate about what I do.”

That’s what I used to think whenever I’d sit down to work and my mind remained stubbornly empty. When I felt distracted and unmotivated and like every idea I’d ever had was a crappier version of something that had already been done.

I’d have done anything for a little of whatever it is that compelled Van Gogh to paint or fuelled Hemingway’s need to write. What I wouldn’t have given foa a taste of whatever it is that drives Adam Sandler to make shitty movie after shitty movie when any sane person would just quit.

I wanted to wake up in the morning and have my first thought be something more meaningful than what’s happening on Twitter. To work from morning till night and feel like the time went by in a flash. I wanted to discover that I’d forgotten to eat or sleep or worry about what other people thought I should be doing with my life.

I understood that life wouldn't be a picnic, even with that certainty. But knowing what to do is better than not knowing, right? Having a fire blazing inside you is better than feeling dimmed. Surely Bach never had days when he woke up and felt like every note he would ever play had been played better by somebody else. Dostoyevsky never…

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Steve QJ
Steve QJ

Written by Steve QJ

Race. Politics. Culture. Sometimes other things. Almost always polite. Find more at https://steveqj.substack.com

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