I’ve heard a lot of frustration recently over “I don’t have a passion for anything, or know how to find it.” Having interests and passions is an important part of a fulfilled life, so let’s talk about it.

Clearly some people find their passions early in life, those are the lucky ones. Maybe their family took them camping when they were younger and they’ve been outdoorsy ever since. Maybe they’ve just always liked writing or painting, and they never had to think about it. Life is kind of like a deck of cards, and these people found the card they were looking for in the first hand they were dealt.

That was not my situation. I kind of just stumbled through the capitalism pipeline of school, college, first job, one bedroom apartment, and didn’t have much that excited me. I might dabble in video games or hiking, but my interest was lukewarm at best. The problem was I didn’t like the cards that I started with, and I wasn’t getting any new cards.

That all changed after a bad breakup. Large life events have a way of resetting your perspective on lots of things, and this was no different. Having more freetime as a single guy, I saw that there were no passions in my life and all the empty free time felt awful. I almost felt like I wasn’t a person, all the things I did like Reddit or video games were just passing the time. I didn’t look forward to doing them, doing them didn’t make me feel good, and I knew I wanted to get more out of life.

Well, if you don’t like the first few cards you get out of the deck, what do you do? Keep drawing cards. You can’t expect to get different results by sticking with the same familiar activities that aren’t giving you the life you want. I made a list of a ton of stuff I hadn’t tried before. I went to meetups for improv acting, tried Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, went to salsa classes, traveled to cities I had never been to before, tried reading new genres of books I had never tried, went to cooking classes….you get the idea. I was burning through that deck, giving each thing a fair shot but stopping as soon as it felt like it wasn’t for me.

The hard thing about passions is you can’t know if it’s right for you until you try it. Rockwall climbing sounds fun, but I don’t really like group activities (and you need someone to hold your safety rope for most walls). Later I found bouldering (shorter walls, no safety rope, solo friendly) and was delighted, but I didn’t discover the right card until I tried the wrong one. 

The point is, those cards were scattered throughout my deck. I had to ditch a ton of stuff that didn’t work to find the cards that worked for me. It’s totally normal that you haven’t found the cards that work for you, many people haven’t. But you have to keep drawing cards from that deck. There’s so much stuff out there you can try. There’s interesting people you’ll meet, skills you have that you haven’t found, and wonderful opportunities you can’t discover without trying something new and seeing what happens.

Case and point: I met one of my best friends through an improv meetup, and another through a book club meetup. I only went to each meetup twice, then deciding they weren’t for me. But those two friends I made connected me to books, events, new hobbies, podcasts and other areas of passion I could not have found on my own, and I hang out with them all the time even though I quit the meetups. It is impossible to see your best life from here. You have to make a guess, try something new, then repeat the process with what you learned.

It’s like we’re playing a new game of minesweeper. You have very little information right now. You have to try moving in one direction, see the numbers pop up, and then you have more data about your next step. By making increasingly better guesses with increasingly better information, you’ll get to a great answer for you. But right now the whole map is hidden. We have to do experiments with new stuff to find out options. You have to keep drawing cards from the deck.

I wish I had an easier answer but I don’t. I was emotionally wrecked after that breakup, my life felt meaningless, and I wanted an easy answer. I wanted someone to hand me a schedule of “Workout MWF, do book club on Thursday, and hike on Saturdays with the boys and then you’ll feel complete.” But life doesn’t work like that. I had to try a bunch of stuff, throw out what didn’t work, and keep what did. I couldn’t guess what would be a good fit until I tried it.

So I’m sorry if this advice sounds flippant, but if you’re stagnant and refusing to try new things, your life is not going to improve. Trial and error with new stuff is the only way forward. No one can do this for you, and staying in your comfort zone is like clicking on the same square in minesweeper over and over again, then feeling mad the map is still hidden. Or holding the same cards you started with and being upset you don’t have a royal flush yet. I promise things can get better, but it’s time to draw some new cards.

Finding your passion requires trial and error.

Don’t have a passion? Then try new things