Above photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

Many of you are preparing to graduate and are or have been fielding the same dreaded question from family members: "What are you going to do with your degree?" To which you might reply, "I don't know....perhaps be an informed citizen who lives each day with the goal of being authentic and treating others with kindness and love and treating myself with compassion." With a puzzled look they say, "Well, that won't pay the bills and put food on the table! What are you passionate about?"

And there is the next dreaded question--what are you passionate about? If you just find your passion, the rest will fall in place, right? What if we shouldn't be following our passions? What if we--and everyone else who keeps asking us that damn question--are wrong about the necessity of discovering a passion in order to take our first big professional steps after graduating from college? We feel a lot of pressure and shame around the work we do, whether we are measuring up to others' expectations, whether we are realizing our perceived potential...that's a lot of energy expended on discovering, finding and realizing our passion. But what if that's the wrong approach?

In her TEDx Talk--"Stop Searching for Your Passion"--Terri Trespicio argues that "passion is a feeling, not a plan...and feelings change" (that's a rough quote). Ms. Trespicio untangles contemporary assumptions about passion and work to offer a new way of thinking about searching for and accepting a job.