The Passion Paradox

✒️ Note-Making

🔗Connect

⬆️Topic:: Stillness ⬆️Topic:: Passion

💡Clarify

🔈 Summary of main ideas

1. the dark side of passion - It leads to suffering and burnout when we tie it to our ego and search for success and external validation, or when we are motivated by fear. It consumes us until we have nothing left to give. The fear of failure and how we are perceived leads us to immoral behavior.
2. Passion is an addiction - Originating with a meaning of "to suffer", passion is essentially an addiction, a price we pay for doing something. Therefore to separate "good" and "bad" passions, we only need to ask ourselves whether what we get in return is good, whether it enriches instead of hurting our lives.
3. Marks of a good passion - Finding a good passion is not easy to identify, the proxies are: it matches our skills, it matches our values, it helps us connect with others.
4. The good side of passion - A passion that enriches us is driven by intrinsic motivation, it makes us present, experience flow, and helps us focus on getting better and learn from failures along the way.
5. Balance is a lie - When pursuing a passion, it is impossible to have a balanced life, it demands more than you can handle without sacrificing something else. Balance is perhaps achieved in the long run, when seasonality allows for a downtime in your passion.
6. Choose intentionally - The single criteria that separates between negative and positive passion is self awareness. As long as we are aware of the cost we are paying by pursuing it, and are willing to do so, then we could keep it in check. It requires taking a step back, to relax and gain perspective when we evaluate it.
7. Write your narrative - Losing a passion is hard and might push us towards addiction. The only way to avoid it is to rewrite our narrative, to focus not on the loss, but on the lessons learned, and to courageously carve our path forward, acknowledging the pain but also how it helped us grow to who we are today.

🗒️Relate

⛓ by following this method, what will happen? What is the goal of this book?

1. You will avoid experiencing burnout or depression when pursuing your passion
2. You will develop self awareness and make intentional choices of how to spend your time
3. You will be able to bounce back after quitting a passion instead of falling into addiction

✅Act

What should I do to achieve the goals set out by this book?

1. Limit obsessive intensity - regularly check whether passion is consuming other areas of life and deliberately scale back activities that lead to burnout.
2. Practice harmonic passion - spend time each day doing the activity for its own sake (intrinsic enjoyment) rather than for external rewards or validation.
3. Evaluate fit over time - commit to a consistent trial period (weeks/months) before abandoning a passion; track progress and obstacles instead of quitting after early failures.
4. Develop the three-fit checklist - weekly review whether the activity improves competence (skill growth), supports autonomy (aligns with core values), and increases relatedness (connects you to others).
5. Maintain a safety net - keep financial or time margins (e.g., a day job or reserve hours) so you can take risks and learn without being forced to stop.
6. Choose process over outcomes - create and follow daily process-focused habits (practice sessions, skill drills) and use goals only to structure those habits.
7. Embrace deliberate practice and grit - schedule regular practice blocks even when immediate improvement is not visible; note small learning gains.
8. Build self-awareness through distancing - habitually use cognitive distancing techniques (speak to yourself like a friend, zoom out to the big picture, seek awe) when emotions cloud judgment.
9. Meditate for clarity - practice meditation (or stoic negative visualization) regularly to gain clarity about priorities and reduce impulsive chasing.
10. Rewrite your narrative - when quittit or failing at a passion, reframe the story towards redemption and growth to avoid addictive replacements and preserve identity.

🔍Critique

🧩 relevant research, metaphors or examples that helps to convey the argument

1. Burning bright vs harmonic passion - The bad version of passion is when we are consumed by it, giving our all until there's nothing left to give. Harmonic passion fuels us, we are enriched by it, it improves our lives.

❌ the logical jumps, holes or simply cases where it is wrong...

1. Our tendency for rationalization can overpower the goal of self awareness. We might be completely sure that we are making deliberate choices that are worth while even though in practice we are being forced to do so by the luring power of our passion. Same as a gambler that justifies "just one more round".
2. They mentioned that balance is just not possible when pursuing your passion, but I think it is a high price to pay for doing so. Some things might not recover if you dedicate a few years to follow your passion, even if you plan on making up for it later.

🧱 Implementations and limitations of it are... The research for this book felt shallow, as if they had only a few examples that they bother to find and serve as the basis of their argument.

🗨️Review

💭 my opinions on the book, the writers style... The book is nice, but even after just finishing it I don't remember much of it. Maybe because I am not the type to go "all in" on a passion that I find it hard to connect with this book, but even so it felt rushed, and even they mentioned that they started writing this one before even finishing their previous book. It feels like a side project rather than a result of a many hours of research and refinement of an argument.

🖼️Outline

📒 Notes

Introduction

Passion is a double-edged sword. It pulls us in deeply and fuels action, yet it can also lead to dissatisfaction and burnout.

Passion Must Be Handled with Care

There are two kinds of passion:

1. Burning bright passion - a passion that consumes you. You become a slave to it and to external metrics of success Comparisons. You act out of necessity, without joy. You lose sight of everything else and sprint as hard as you can until you Burnout.
2. Harmonic passion - a passion that enriches your life, brings joy, and stays in harmony with the rest of your life.

The Origins of Passion

Passion began as a word meaning to suffer. It had a negative connotation that evolved from being consumed by suffering, to something you suffer for, and in recent decades to the chase itself. Semantics of words

Passion fills us with dopamine, which creates a belief of Future disillusionment: "when I achieve x, I'll finally be happy." This is a trap because we derive almost no pleasure from achieving, only from the chase. It becomes an Addiction.

This also explains why addiction is often an alternative for those who have lost their passion. They are different methods for answering the same need.

Passion often grows from trauma - some psychological pain that drives us to dive headfirst into something, either to forget or to compensate for a painful past Lost in the finite.

The Origins of Passion

• We don’t get hooked on the feeling associated with achievement, we get hooked on the feeling associated with the chase. (Location 225)
• We’re not wired to simply be content. We’re wired to keep pushing. (Location 228)
• The more dopamine someone needs to feel good, the more willing she is to strive for and chase after ridiculously challenging rewards, even if doing so turns out to be detrimental to her in some way. (Location 257)
• The line between what is good and bad—between what is productive and destructive, between when lots of dopamine fuels generative action and when it leads to disorder—is a fine and fragile one. (Location 386)

Find and Grow Your Passion

With passion, as with love, we tend to fall for the fit fallacy - that by following our passion we should see immediate success and feel great. Inevitably, we face obstacles and failures, which makes us say, "This probably wasn't it. It wasn't my one true passion," and we switch in search of a better match Fixed Mindset.

We fall blindly into Perfectionism, letting it destroy good opportunities just because they aren't perfect 100% of the time Perfect is the enemy of good. Instead, give yourself the freedom to continue and see whether something fits before quitting.

A good sign is when your passion meets these three components:

1. Competence - it connects with your skills and improves you and your life in some way Skill synthesis
2. Autonomy - it connects with your Core Values, enriching your life
3. Relatedness - it connects you to others Human is a social being

Over time, spend more time developing your passion, but don’t go all out. For example, keeping your day job gives you a financial safety net while you venture out Pivot.

Have enough Margins to take risks and learn from your mistakes without being forced to stop (for lack of funding, for example). Let things develop as they should without rushing.

As time passes, shift more of your time to your passion and less to your safety net until you’re ready to take the leap and work solely on your passion.

Find and Grow Your Passion

• the destiny belief system of love is often misguided. It is very much an all-or-nothing approach, and far too often leaves people on a never-ending search for some sort of illusory perfection. (Location 447)
• A fit mind-set for passion is constraining; it inherently limits one to activities that feel good immediately and makes one fragile to challenge or change. (Location 465)
• A better approach to finding your passion is to lower the bar from perfect to interesting, then give yourself permission to pursue your interests with an open mind. (Location 469)
• Those who go big or go home often end up going home. Those who go incrementally over a long period of time often end up with something big. (Location 647)
• There’s no way to be 100 percent certain when the time is right to go all in, but when you have sufficient faith, making the leap won’t be as scary. It won’t even feel like that much of a leap. It will simply be taking the next logical step on your progression toward living life with more passion. (Location 709)

When Passion Goes Awry

When we obsess over our passion, we become so blinded that we cut corners and cross into moral gray areas just to reach our target whatever it takes.

We tie our Ego to our success, even when it's not entirely within our control unenforceable rule. We then do everything to avoid Failure, even if it means to decieve everyone, including ourselves. We hitch our identity to external validation External Motivation.

Even if we achieve success, it will be short-lived because we won't be satisfied. We quickly become accustomed to the new situation and stay hungry for more. A Vicious cycle that ends in more and more suffering.

Another dark side of passion is when Fear motivates us. It’s a good short-term driver but unsustainable long-term. It makes us loss averse, and we switch from playing to win to playing to avoid losing winner or loser game. We focus on not losing what we have instead of advancing and improving.

When Passion Goes Awry

• Obsessive passion can quickly hijack a joyful and righteous pursuit and turn it into a dark one. (Location 793)
• Those who are most focused on reaching some external barometer of success are often the same people who struggle most to enjoy it. That’s because they’ll always crave more. (Location 830)
• the dark, bad kind of passion rears its ugly head when we become passionate not about an activity but about the external validation and success it might bring. (Location 873)
• your passion should not come from the outside. It should come from within. (Location 998)

The Best Kind of Passion

The good kind of passion is harmonious passion. It improves well-being and increases your chances of success. It empowers and enriches your life.

You cultivate it when you do things for their own sake Intrinsic Motivation, enjoying the task without thinking about external factors. You are Immersed in it, absorbed by it. It brings immense joy, and success is its byproduct. When you stop chasing success and just focus on doing, you often become more successful The law of reverse effect.

Cultivating good passion requires effort and intention to detach from the default culture of bad passion. It requires a mastery mindset.

The attributes of a positive mastery mindset are:

1. Driven from within - motivated mostly by the intrinsic love of the craft. Whether they win or lose, they practice, practice, practice. They are not swallowed by ego and focus on their core values.
2. Focus on the process - you can’t control whether you achieve a specific goal. You can only control the process, so focus on that Trust the Process. Use goal-setting only to define the habits and steps that bring you closer. Get satisfaction from doing your best, regardless of external outcomes.
3. Focus on getting better, don’t compare to others - don’t follow your passion just to reach a destination. Embrace its identity, like “runner” or “writer” change starts from the inside out. Keep practicing throughout your life to become the best you can be.
4. Embrace failures for long-term learning - failure is a lesson you can use as a stepping stone on the path to mastery. Don’t quit. Put your ego aside and listen Obstacles as stepping stones.
5. Practice, practice, practice - have the Patience and Grit to practice even when you don’t see tangible improvement or significant results Practice is the best teacher.
6. Be present - avoid autopilot thinking and distractions. Pay full attention to what you’re doing mindfulness. Attention is valuable; use it wisely.

The Best Kind of Passion

• Enter harmonious passion a feeling that emerges when you are wrapped up in something primarily for the joy of the activity, when your engagement is not merely a means to an end but rather an end in itself.* (Location 1013)
• Those who focus most on success are least likely to achieve it. Those who focus least on success, and focus on the process of engaging in their craft instead, are most likely to achieve it. (Location 1025)
• Don’t judge yourself against others. Judge yourself against prior versions of yourself and the effort you are exerting in the present moment. This is about as healthy a form of competition as there is. (Location 1080)
• it is the process, not the outcome, that is within your control. (Location 1175)
• First, set a goal—but remember, it should serve more as a direction than a destination. Next, figure out the steps that are required to make progress toward that goal and that are within your control. Then (mostly) forget about the goal, and focus on nailing the steps instead. (Location 1185)
• Don’t spend too much time reflecting on whether you achieved specific goals. Spend time reflecting on how well you adhered to a process that gives you the best chance of progressing in your chosen pursuit. A goal is a direction, not a destination. Process keeps you present on your journey. (Location 1204)
• When your utmost goal is simply to get better, all failures and successes are temporary because you will forever improve, given more time and more practice. (Location 1217)
• The ultimate goal is to get better—stronger, kinder, and wiser—than your past self. (Location 1244)
• You not only learn from failure, but if you accept it as an inherent part of mastery and view it productively, you overcome it and are hardened by it. (Location 1277)
• if you remove your ego from the equation, failure can be a source of rich information and an opportunity to grow. (Location 1288)
• adopting the mastery mind-set and nurturing the harmonious passion it spawns are the keys to getting the most out of yourself, and the most out of life. (Location 1458)

The Illusion of Balance

Passion is, by definition, not balanced. It takes us in completely and demands our full attention and time. We mistakenly think we can Have it all, but it’s not possible.

There are two main things to preserve while pursuing your passion:

1. Rest - passion is a marathon, not a sprint. If we overextend ourselves, we perform worse mentally and physically Rest. Rest enables us to convert struggle into growth.
2. Self-awareness - we need to be mindful of what we’re losing or paying when we choose to pursue our passion, so we don’t make unacceptable sacrifices Self-awareness.

While you might not have Balance day to day, you can still pursue passion and have balance overall. Like an athlete who trains hard before a competition and then takes a vacation afterward.

Self-awareness and the Power to Choose

Self-awareness is the only tool that keeps us from being swept away by passion. It helps us maintain control and choose intentionally, even if we choose not to be balanced.

To maintain self-awareness:

1. Gain distance - we’re often too close to the problem to solve it. We need to distance ourselves and take a step back. For example:
   1. Speak to yourself as a friend - instead of talking in the first person, think as if you’re giving Advice to a friend self talk.
   2. Zoom out - try to see the big picture by zooming out. Consider a broader perspective, like a longer time frame or how it affects more than just you.
   3. Experience awe - connect with something bigger than yourself, such as nature or art, through moments of awe.
2. Meditation - practicing Meditation can help you gain Clarity. Another form is the Stoic negative meditation, where you reflect on life’s fleetingness as motivation to focus on what matters.

Self-Awareness and the Power to Choose

• when we take ourselves out of the picture, we often gain a much fuller and more holistic view of it; a view that promotes thinking alongside feeling and yields greater wisdom. (Location 1837)

Moving on

Quitting the pursuit of a passion can be a shattering experience. It creates a void that often gets filled with addictions like gambling or alcohol.

To avoid this trap, examine the Narrative you tell yourself. Narratives are deeply embedded in our mindset and shape how we evaluate our lives. A contamination story (life was good and now is bad) leads to helplessness and harmful behavior. A redemption story (I faced an obstacle and now I’m stronger) leads to a happier, more productive, and proactive outlook.

A positive narrative also fosters a Growth Mindset, which helps us see obstacles as lessons and be grateful for what we had, even if it’s gone.

There’s no denying it was a big part of your life. Even if you move on, it will always be part of you, shaping who you are today.

Unfortunately, our identity is also influenced by how others perceive us. We can be labeled with an identity that’s hard to shed, and we don’t control how we’re seen. Focus on what you can do. Continue to signal and act as the identity you want to become. That’s the best you can do, and hopefully the world will follow.

The ability to Forget and rewrite your life’s narrative is key to living well. Perfect memory is more of a curse than a blessing because the vividness of past experiences never fades and clings to our identity. Forgetting, on the other hand, weakens the past’s grip and helps us move forward and rewrite our story into a positive one.

Moving On

• When the stability of your identity and the structure of your life disappear at the same time, it’s easy to see how chaos often ensues. (Location 2056)
• One of the defining features of the human species is that we are programmed to construct stories to make meaning of our lives. Without such stories, we feel lost. (Location 2104)
• You should recognize and accept how your passion changed you and then constructively integrate those insights into a forever unfolding story, a story that has future chapters. (Location 2129)
• our identities are constructs that result from what we reflect on others and what others reflect on us. (Location 2215)
• The only thing that shapes your identity more than the pursuit of your passions is your internal narrative: the story you tell yourself about yourself. (Location 2270)
• Living Productively with Passion (Location 2286)
• Mindfully living with a passion can be the key to a life well lived. (Location 2288)

Conclusion