Passion is Personal; Purpose is an Assignment

I recently listened to a podcast discussing the difference between passion and purpose, and it brought me back to a time when I struggled to distinguish the two. In my mind, the two concepts were intertwined — interchangeable. I would ask questions like, “Do I follow my passion or my purpose?” — “Can passion and purpose coexist, or do I need to choose one or the other?” — “Why do people say, ‘find something you’re passionate about’ and not ‘find something you’re purposeful about’ when referring to the grand scheme of life?” or heck, “How does one even go about finding their passion and purpose?”

Needless to say, I felt utterly confused, and in that confusion, I made it a personal mission to understand how I could “find” my passion and my purpose once and for all. As I traversed what turned out to be a complex yet attainable topic, I first understood that one can have multiple passions and purposes in life. Neither were singular “destinations,” and it is, in fact, rare to have only one of each. Why? Because we’re intricate humans, and we evolve over time.

Sure, we may experience different iterations of our passions and purposes or find ourselves in an ebb-and-flow situation with them as we develop, but we’re also susceptible to completely outgrowing what may once have held so much significance in our lives — and guess what? That’s totally okay.