Is it bad advice to turn your passion into a career?

N918KT

N918KT

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I think everyone has heard this advice or adage before: Find a job you like doing and you never have to work a day again.

Do you think it is good advice or bad advice to give to someone who have trouble deciding on what they want to do in their lives? Does doing something you have a passion for really feels more like a job or work or do you think it is a privilege? I'm asking for your philosophical thoughts on this. What do you think?
 
Depends on you, the job, etc… Problem with most jobs is there is a combination of stuff you like and stuff you don't. I recently met an airline pilot who was getting out of the game because of the "bullsh!t". He seemed to like flying enough, but there were other aspects of the job with which he was less than enthusiastic.
 
Of course it's a good idea!

Problem is not many folks really have a passion for anything nowadays, even fewer really hustle.
 
Flying lost its appeal to me when I started doing it for work.
 
I've been a tech and an engineer all my life. I knew it was my career when I was 8.

I'd love to fly as a career for a few years, but I still love engineering and I'm too old.
 
It depends. Really.

There are some jobs you should pursue if you can't think of yourself doing anything else. Performing arts, for instance. Maybe airline pilot falls in this category; I'm not one, so I don't know.

There are other jobs where you can take the job without a significant sacrifice, and have a blast doing it. No question, that's a "go for it." Lots of techies and engineers do that.

So, it MAY be bad advice. Or maybe not.

Giving a musician this advice means a lot of ramen noodle meals. Maybe it's worth it, maybe not; that's a difficult decision. A musician is a guy who puts a $5000 instrument in a $500 car to drive to a $50 gig. And I wish I was kidding. Those of us who eat reasonably and can afford to do things like fly airplanes almost all have day jobs. The current gig will pay $300 for six nights. I ain't doin' it for the money.
 
It's one thing to want to do something. Being told to do it is another. It's also different when you have the bird's eye view doing something as a hobby instead of seeing all the BS when you do it everyday. You end up hating your job and losing your passion.
 
I really don't think I could reel enough in as a gigolo to support my aviation habit.
 
NJP_MAN said:
Flying lost its appeal to me when I started doing it for work.
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Same thing happened to me. Once I started flying for work. I lost all my passion and enthusiasm of flying. It just became work.

Now I work outside of aviation, CFI part time, and fly when I want. I have no regrets about walking away from the pilot job.
 
I started racing cars as a hobby when I was 16. Ok, it was red light to red light illegal street racing. It developed into a full time career in racing from local circle tracks to working as a pit crew member then fuel specialist for a top NASCAR team. In between I had a racing fuel business to support my car. It went from fun to work.

Then I started flying. It went from a sunny day private flyer to a flight instructor to bush pilot to a very short lived regional job back to the bush then an air ambulance pilot to an air ambulance business owner.

Someone please tell me how to stop making my fun into a business so I can just have fun.?? :lol::lol::lol:
 
I think it's a better idea to make a career out of whatever will allow you to pursue your passion.
 
In most cases I think it's a mistake to make a career out of something you enjoy. It just ends up sapping all the fun out of it.

When I was in HS and college I loved programming. That was way before computers were cool. Got out of school and did it for several years, seldom enjoying it. I love flying and started racking up some hours to be able to do it for a living. It took me a while, but I figured out I wasn't enjoying it as much as I had. By that time I found a job I enjoy and just fly for fun. Go when I want, where I want. And never looked back.
 
I think early in my career doing something I was passionate about was a good idea. Kept me motivated to learn a ton. I'd go home at night and mess with it all the more on my home "lab" of stuff and read volumes.

Nowadays I know what's being screwed up without even thinking too hard about it, and how many late nights it'll cost me to fix it -- after-hours when no one is working, meaning midnight or later sometimes -- and I can happily say "show me the money", because this is going to take months to plan and deploy, and lots of late nights ...

... And I don't do that crap for free anymore.
 
For some people, yes, it is a bad idea to turn your passion into a career. For others it isn't. The only one that can answer that for you is you. I know several professional pilots who burned out on it, on the less-than-pleasant aspects of their flying careers. I've been a professional pilot for about 25 years now, and I still love it, and I can't imagine doing anything else. I made a lot of sacrifices to get there, it wasn't all a cake walk, and I have made choices that kept me flying in areas in which I would remain happy with my schedule and quality of life. That means for me that airline flying for example didn't interest me, wouldn't have made me happy. So I don't fly big iron, but I'm fine with that. I get the opportunity to fly all sorts of different airplanes in all sorts of different capacities about 600-1000 hrs per year depending on the year, and get paid for it; flying has always been my passion and still is, and most days it really doesn't feel like I'm actually working. YMMV, but my advice would be, if you want to turn your passion into a career, make sure WHICH path down that career you really and truly want to take.
 
FlightofTwo said:
For some people, yes, it is a bad idea to turn your passion into a career. For others it isn't. The only one that can answer that for you is you. I know several professional pilots who burned out on it, on the less-than-pleasant aspects of their flying careers. I've been a professional pilot for about 25 years now, and I still love it, and I can't imagine doing anything else. I made a lot of sacrifices to get there, it wasn't all a cake walk, and I have made choices that kept me flying in areas in which I would remain happy with my schedule and quality of life.
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This is so true. For some, it is a bad idea. Others thrive on it. You pretty much need to know thyself.
 
Gerhardt said:
In most cases I think it's a mistake to make a career out of something you enjoy. It just ends up sapping all the fun out of it.

When I was in HS and college I loved programming. That was way before computers were cool. Got out of school and did it for several years, seldom enjoying it. I love flying and started racking up some hours to be able to do it for a living. It took me a while, but I figured out I wasn't enjoying it as much as I had. By that time I found a job I enjoy and just fly for fun. Go when I want, where I want. And never looked back.
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It's kind of a natural progression though unless you have a personal mission for a plane that you can afford to execute, either that or you quit flying. Once you have learned to fly, the question is invariably, "what do I do with this now?"

Reality is, most people don't really have a purpose for GA, and a bunch of the ones that want to use it to travel found they can't afford to. So that means the logical next step if you want to keep flying is to find a job flying so you do it on someone else's dime.
 
I really enjoy building, restoring and working on airplanes. I finally broke down and got my A&P in January. All of a sudden I have way too many requests for me to do and if I took all of them on I wouldn't have time to do my own stuff. I learned to say no pretty quick and will only do the jobs that are fun for me to do. I do just enough to pay for the hangar and tools that I keep adding to the collection. I don't want it to become my JOB.
I think it is important to find a career that you enjoy doing. I have been a Dental technician for 45 years and owned my own lab for 38 years. I have a great bunch of accounts I work for and things change enough to keep things interesting. I don't have any employees to deal with and have worked a 25-30 hour week for the last 10 years. I don't plan to quit anytime soon. I feel very lucky as most people hate their jobs and never develop a passion for anything.
 
Sac Arrow said:
I really don't think I could reel enough in as a gigolo to support my aviation habit.
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All those lonely, neglected housewives at spin class and you aren't able to hustle them for some "private lessons"?
 
I think that becoming a CFI and instructing a few days a week when I retire will be just the right amount of fun/work so I don't ruin aviation for myself.
 
James331 said:
Of course it's a good idea!

Problem is not many folks really have a passion for anything nowadays, even fewer really hustle.
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I'd rather have a job I'm good at. I've seen too many people who become "passionate" about something they just don't have the ability to learn to do. Usually because they think there is good money in their "passion."
 
JB1842 said:
All those lonely, neglected housewives at spin class and you aren't able to hustle them for some "private lessons"?
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Yeah but that's a low revenue venue at best. The real money is with the older, silver haired corporate CEO's. I could be Carly Fiorina's escort. That would be a good gig.
 
Henning said:
It's kind of a natural progression though unless you have a personal mission for a plane that you can afford to execute, either that or you quit flying. Once you have learned to fly, the question is invariably, "what do I do with this now?"

Reality is, most people don't really have a purpose for GA, and a bunch of the ones that want to use it to travel found they can't afford to. So that means the logical next step if you want to keep flying is to find a job flying so you do it on someone else's dime.
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That was where I was back then. I did not qualify for either airline or military because of eyesight, not to mention the part that neither was attractive to me. Even before I graduated college I had realized my major was not particularly what I wanted to do as a career. Very coincidentally I found a job in the back seat of a small airplane doing mapping and gradually, over the course of about five years, moved to the front seat. Doing it that way I knew early on about the realities of aviation as a job so I'm not sure I ever had any illusions. If I hadn't done it that way I would have probably dropped out for lack of money and/or mission and who knows if I would have gone back.
 
You should like what you do.
But if you have a "passion" for it, then it should probably be a hobby.
If you make a career out of your passion, you will soon find that you have no other life. AND you will probably wind up hating what you loved because it now controls you.
 
AuntPeggy said:
I'd rather have a job I'm good at. I've seen too many people who become "passionate" about something they just don't have the ability to learn to do. Usually because they think there is good money in their "passion."
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If you're not good at flying you won't get very far anyways, aviation does a good job at weeding folks out.
 
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