Burn Your Parachute
Introduction
Thank you for coming to my website. My name is Elin Stone. One of the first things people notice about me is my love for listening to people, especially when the topic of passions comes up. I love watching others demeanor change when they get the opportunity to talk about their passion. This is typically seen in a brighter smile, excited gestures, and a tendency to talk in great detail. People's enthusiasm for their passion consistently brings a smile to my face. Having a passion can be a great source of purpose and joy. While I agree with the previous statement, some events in my own life caused me to wonder if the positive effects of passions are ever overstated. As a result, this website is all about passions, obsessions, and other topics which take up a significant amount of our time. On the rest of this page, I evaluate research, personal conversations, and television material in order to promote discourse over the impacts of such topics on our lives.
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Before you continue, please take a moment to consider your own passions or obsessions. What drives you to pursue them? Why do these ideas interest you? How have they impacted your life?
An Exploration
For as long as I can remember, there's been somebody canvassing me about my potential passions. At first it was my parents, then it was colleges, now it's me.
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College graduation is looming in the shadows and panic is there with it. I’m being forced to consider the intimidating reality that 3 months from now I will graduate, turn 22, and have my lease expire all in the same week. Life as I know it is changing.
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I'm also starting to make concrete plans regarding where my life goes post-graduation. A couple months ago, it was much easier to think about graduating. I had my own list of things I wanted to do. First on the list, obviously, was walking across the stage and having a degree. Then came having a job, filling out medical school applications, and finally pressing submit.
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It was all theoretical then. Now that these things actually are starting to happen, it feels too real. As college comes to an end, I'm feeling reflective about my past perceptions on what it means to be passionate and the purpose of passion in peoples lives.
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The term passion can be used to describe many things. Most frequently, I hear it used to describe a person's dedication to hobbies, individuals, or career. For example, sports are hobbies that incite passion. Individuals in romantic relationships will claim their passion for the other person. People prioritize finding a job that they are passionate about. As a college senior who is trying to formulate her future career, it is this last type of passion that I find myself contemplating. With that in mind, career focused passion will be the center of the rest of this work.
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It is no secret that career focused passion is a common topic in culture. It has been for a long time. There are entire books dedicated to helping people find jobs they want. The book "What Color is Your Parachute?" is a prime example of this. It is also the inspiration behind this websites title. It's goal is to offer tips and trick for landing your dream job. It's goal raises an important question; how does somebody know what job they're even looking for?
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At a young age I had the impression that my future job had to stem from passion. When I was in second grade I volunteered to introduce a song at one of my school music concerts. All of the volunteers went up to the microphone and said what they wanted their future job to be. At eight years old this seemed simple. Well, I'm supposed to have a job that I love, I thought. I reflected on things I enjoyed and turned one of them into a career.
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When my turn came, I proudly walked up to the microphone. "I'm going to be a dance teacher." I declared. I liked dancing, so obviously I wanted to be a dance teacher. It just made sense. I'm sure my classmates gave similar answers. Want to catch criminals? Be a police officer. Like space? You must be destined to be an astronaut. Back then my dream career was just an offshoot of something I loved.
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As I grew older, the term career gained another stipulation; it had to be practical.
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Passion and practicality. Hmm.
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My interests had shifted since second grade and I had a new career goal: medicine. While this is still my goal today, something has been gnawing at me as of recently. I know medicine is a practical choice. I know I'm interested in the topics of science and medicine. But at what point does interest develop into passion? Am I really passionate about medicine? Am I passionate about anything?
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Take my major as an example of this last question. I'm currently studying biochemistry. Overall, I would say that I've enjoyed my major. The classes have been interesting- some more interesting than others. The people have been nice. The professors have been supportive. I'm satisfied.
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Still, I can't help but notice how some of my peers are clearly more invested in the material than I am. They read the bonus material in the textbook and send our class random research papers relating to our homework. It's intimidating. I makes me wonder; do I even have a passion?
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Other people around me show signs of passion. But I don't feel I have one specific passion. Of course I have interests, but I don't think any of them can be classified as passions.
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I started to wonder if there was something wrong with me. Why wasn't it easy for me to find a topic I felt passionate about? Considering this caused stress and worry. I linked having passion for your career with happiness and career satisfaction. I worried that I would be unhappy for the rest of my life if I didn't find a job I felt intense passion for.
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As I thought about passion more, I began to see it appearing in more places. Even while watching tv, I found myself considering the relationship between a characters career and their passion. For example, my dad and I enjoy watching a show called Fringe. It centers 3 main characters; Dr. Walter Bishop, his son Peter, and FBI agent Olivia Dunham. Together they investigate unusual crimes.
Each character's passion drives them to interact with their jobs in similar but different ways.
Dr. Walter Bishop exemplifies a mad scientist character. In the the first episode he is checked out of a mental hospital to help investigate. Throughout the series the audience sees Dr. Bishop's passion through his energetic love of science and various eccentricities. One of my favorite parts involves him keeping a cow in his lab. When he requests the cow, Walter states that the "only thing better than a cow is a human. Unless you need milk. Then you really need a cow" ("Pilot"). Throughout various seasons of the show the cow is periodically shown in the background of the lab and is a visualization of his eccentric qualities. It is clear that Dr. Bishop has devoted his life to science. While he loves his job, he also appears frustrated by his mental troubles.
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Similarly, Olivia Dunham's passion is displayed via her dedication to her job. She is a workaholic who frequently spends long hours at work and comes in whenever she is called upon. However, she struggles to juggle her work and spending time with her family. She yearns to spend time with her niece but finds herself being pulled away by her demanding job.
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Both of these characters display passion towards their jobs. Because they are pursuing their passions they also receive satisfaction from their jobs. Parts of their personal life suffer because of their passion as well. While watching them, I started thinking that the stress I experienced over finding a passion might be caused by cultural factors.
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Characters in other shows display intense passion for their jobs. In fact, we see hardly ever see them engaging in activities that don't involve work. Any basic crime show is the perfect example of this. Consider Law and Order or Criminal Minds. The characters are always shown in pursuit of the most recent criminal. Any glimpse of life outside of the office is used to create backstory or drama within the show.
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I wanted a different television commentary on the purpose of passion. The movie Soul was recommended to me for this purpose. It tells the story of a jazz musician named Joe. He works as a music teacher who dreams of becoming a professional musician. One day he accidentally journeys into a new realm. While there he helps a being named 22 find their passion. Along the way he is forced to consider topics such as passion, destiny, and the purpose of souls. Warning: lot's of spoilers ahead.
The movie itself is useful for prompting thought about the relationship between people's passions and their purpose.
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At one point in the movie the characters travel to an environment where they can see others fully invested and lost in their passions. Watch a movie clip from YouTube to see this.
"This is the zone. It's the space between the physical and spiritual"
Joe is amazed. He claims that he was in the zone earlier that day while playing. In this moment, being in the zone seems amazing. It appears that being in the zone should be the goal when engaging in one's passions. However, the movie mentions that sometimes passions can be taken too far. It depicts this through individuals who end up too deep in the zone. This can be seen in the clip below.
Joe and 22 stumble across a sea of dark gloomy figures called lost souls. They watch one of the characters who is in the zone drift down and take on the dark and gloomy form. The character behind them explains how the lost souls are similar to those in the zone. He says that being in the zone is enjoyable, but when that becomes an obsession somebody can become disconnected with life. The lost souls were entirely consumed by their passions. Eventually, their passions became their downfall. This directly connected to my own musings about passions. As previously mentioned, the pressure to find a passion had caused stress in my life. Passion seems to be exalted as a goal to strive for. But I am suspicious of this consistently positive connotation. The lost souls in this film not only confirmed of my hypothesis that there is a dark side to passions, but elaborated on it as well. It appeared that passions could become negative influences for a variety of reasons. Like I had experienced, pressure to find a passion can be negative. The opposite is also might true, too much engagement with a passion might also be a deleterious.​
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At the end of the movie, Joe comes to his own revelation about his own mistaken impressions. Watch a clip of this to see.
In this scene we see Joe sitting at his piano looking blue. He begins to tap the keys and looks at the collection of objects sitting next to him. Each object represents a different memory from his journey and his life. He begins to play with more intentionality. The audience sees him remember different little moments from throughout the film. It is then that he realizes the joys of simply living. Moments that seemed inconsequential at the time brought him happiness.
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The movie seems to suggest that peoples preconceptions about passion are mislead; your passion doesn't necessarily need to be your purpose in life. It is acceptable to enjoy the little moments even if they aren't in pursuit of a specific passion.
It seemed like I was catching on to something. Looking into different shows and movies had validated my personal musings. But I knew that doing more formal research was an important next step. This was crucial for two reasons. First, it provided important context. I had noticed a trend; who else had? what did people researching passion say about its effects? These were questions I wanted answered. Second, formalizing my vocabulary and having clearer definitions of the terms I was engaging with will deepen this websites meaning.
Admittedly, passion has been a heavily researched topic. One of the pioneers in passion research is a man name Dr. Robert J Vallerand. As a result, it’s impossible to consider the topic without addressing his research in depth. He is a professor of psychology at the Université du Québec à Montréal. One of his most well known theories is the Dualistic Model of Passion. He presented this in a 2003 paper titled “Les Passions de l’Âme: On Obsessive and Harmonious Passion.” Here 2 opposing sides are outlined. The first type of passion is described as harmonious passion and the second is obsessive passion. They are similar because they cause an individual to value an activity and lead to both time and energy investment in the activity. However, they differ in how each activity is “internalized into one’s core self or identity.” As Vallerand says “harmonious passion results from an autonomous internalization of the activity into one's identity” while obsessive passion “results from a controlled internalization” (Vallerand). More simply, harmonious passion is when you are able to do things using free will. Obsessive passion crosses that line and leads a person to have no control over the desire to participate in said activity.
This lines up with the depictions of passion presented in the soul movie. Individuals in the zone are interacting with their passions in a harmonious way. They seem to have complete control over their level of interaction. However, the lost souls have been completely overwhelmed by their passions. They have no control over their interactions and it consumes them.
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I was confused. The ability of passion to become a negative force seemed to be well recognized. Why was I just hearing about it now? These past couple months I have been applying to jobs. During this process companies want to know if I have a passion for whatever their work is.
I decided to dig more into research regarding passion in the workplace. What did employers think of the conflicting sides of passion? I hypothesized that employers wanted passionate employees because they would be more motivated than employees without passion. The research I found supported this. One research paper from 2019 looked at the relationship between passion and performance. As expected in the field, the researchers used the terms harmonious and obsessive to describe the levels of passion they evaluated. They noted early on that “obsessively passionate employees tend to be star performers” using Steve Jobs, Marissa Mayer, and Elon Musk as their examples of obsessively passionate individuals. However, they then countered by citing that “harmonious passion consistently predicts higher performance.”
From these statements it seemed that some obsessively passionate employees were great employees. But harmonious passion was a better predictor of performance.
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As I kept reading, the term “career adaptability” or people's ability to adapt and allocate their resources became important. Specifically, career adaptability was found to be positively linked to job performance. They mentioned that harmoniously passionate individuals allocate their resources “fluidly” between their “passionate and non-passionate domains.” Obsessively passionate were more vulnerable to energy drain because they didn't spread out their resource allocation as well as the harmoniously passionate individuals. Interestingly, the researchers stressed the importance of organizations recognizing the prices of obsessive passion: reduced employee well being, increased emotional exhaustion, and impaired performance (Amarnai et al). In their findings, I found more proof that not all passion is good passion. In fact, sometimes having passion can have adverse physical and mental consequences.
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This raised a yet another question in my mind. I entered into my research process hoping to clarify terms and categorizations of passion. I had successfully found that passion had two extremes: harmonious and obsessive. But I was lead to wonder what the difference between obsessive passion and obsession was.
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Trying to research this subject was troublesome. Looking for papers that contained both the word passion and obsession automatically resulted in those discussing obsessive passion. It was difficult to find anything explicitly discussing their differences. Despite this frustration, I still wanted to believe that they were unique terms. I’ve used passion to describe feelings for a field, cause, or person. While obsession can be used to describe those same concepts, it seems to describe a deeper level of attachment. For instance, after graduating I hope to go into medicine. Medicine is a topic that people say they have passion for. But I've never heard of anybody claiming they are obsessed with it. My initial impressions are that obsessions require constant thought and mental resources. When used separately obsessive passion and obsession both describe feelings of interest and engagement with a certain topic. However, I hypothesized that obsession is a bit more intense and overwhelming.
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I figured an exploration into how the terms are used might help to clarify my thoughts. The first stop here is The New York Times, specifically articles that appear when “obsession” is typed in the search bar. I looked at the articles that were recently published here. Two variations caught my eye. The first centered around why an individual engages in a personal obsession. One example of this is “The Mystery of My Obsession with Agatha Christie” the author here describes why she was drawn an obsession with Agatha Christie's murder mysteries during the early pandemic. She describes her interest as being driven by the comfort the books provided her. The end of the books promised resolution of the crimes. It was an appealing concept when not much was known about COVID-19 (Fisher). From her writing, it seems that obsessions can stem from a variety of causes. In this instance obsession was prompted out of current events and the appeal of consistency in a changing world.
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The second is a description of a cultural obsession. An example of this is an article titled “Hollywood’s Obsession with Cartels.” This article discusses the recent popularity of cartel operations in modern television. It calls attention to the dangers of consistently labeling Latino characters as dangerous or evil because of how it perpetuates negative stereotypes (Tobar).
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Overall, these two article types have a similar goal: casting light on how individuals and society experience obsessions. This didn't help me to clarify usage of the term. Just like an obsessive passion, an obsession seemed to defined by an intense fixation.
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Naturally, the next step was a similar search but using the search term "passion." I hoped that obsessive passion would show up with it. But it didn't.
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Besides articles reviewing books or movies with the word passion in their title, the first piece that caught my eye was written by Anne Raver and titled “A Passion and Then A Solace.” It tells the story of a man named Peter Wooster. He developed a passion for plants and gardening. As a result, he had an impressive collection of plants. However, he had a stroke that left him unable to use his right side and complete sentences. they used the term passion to describe his love for gardening and the contentment he was able to find in it.
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Other articles discussing passion were similar because they focused on people's interests and hobbies. The passions mentioned in these articles were controlled so they seemed to be similar to Vallerand's harmonious passion.
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I will admit that I was a bit disappointed by this exploration. I had originally thought that obsessive passion and obsession were completely different terms and had hoped to find that. However, it appeared that the terms contained quite a bit of overlap.
Overall, I was left two main couple of takeaways from my research.
First, there is a dark side to passion that is acknowledged in research but never talked about culturally.
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Second, the terms harmonious passion, passion, obsession, and obsessive passion aren't clearly distinguished. The lines that divide them appear muddy. It seems as though the terms get used interchangeably.
Researching what literature was helpful for contextualizing what was being said about the topic in academia. But I recognized that it wasn't the full picture. Passions are an intensely personal subject. I knew that I needed to talk to other individuals as well. I hoped that seeing the topic from other perspectives would help me to realize why nobody was talking about negative effects of passion. I also hoped it would shed additional light onto any misuse of the word.
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My first conversation occurred with a friend of mine named Peter. He is a senior at the University of Michigan studying psychology in is a member of an entrepreneurship fraternity on campus. Listen to the audio below to hear the beginning of our conversation.
I was encouraged by these first couple minutes of the interview because of how Peter separate passion from obsession. He did so similarly to how harmonious and obsessive passions were separated by Vallerand. This fit nicely with my conclusion that obsession and obsessive passion overlap with each other. Peter said that obsessions are often associated with a lack of control. One major way in which Vallerand differentiated between types of passion was in people's ability to control their interaction with them. People with harmonious passion are able to use their own free will. Obsessive passion leads to no control over interaction with the topic. Generally, this part of my discussion with him revealed that the general divisions between terms are easily recognizable when prompted.
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In my research, I discovered that passion could have negative effects on people's mental and physical health. I decided to ask my friend Peter his thoughts on the impacts of passion in our lives. Listen to his initial thoughts below.
Previously, I wrote about the ways that I had seen the term passion used in society. So I asked Peter the different ways in which he had seen the term used. He ended up talking about his interviewing students for his entrepreneurship fraternity. During this part of our conversation, I felt it was an appropriate time to transition into a discussion on the relationship between stress and passion. At the end, I asked if he felt that passions are good, bad, or mixed. Below is this chunk of our discussion.
"People almost mix up interest with passion... and passion for wanting to be a part of things"
He described witnessing students experiencing stress over the expectation that they needed to demonstrate a passion for entrepreneurship. While he does admit that they are looking for passionate individuals, his response also emphasizes that the organization wants individuals who demonstrate passion through actions and not just through words. I mentioned previously that pressure to have a passion was a source of stress in my life. The expectation that passion should be demonstrated through actions is the correlated with this.
I'm at the point of my medical school application process where I'm beginning to think about drafting a personal statement. The main goal of this statement is to explain why I want to have a career in medicine. The trick to these seems to be finding specific stories in your life that exemplify why I want to be a physician. Basically, I need to explain how my passion for medicine has been demonstrated in my actions. I can think of a multitude of examples for why I'm interested in medicine. Deciding which will set me apart from other candidates while accurately displaying my interest is an additional source of stress.
Listening to Peter talk about the entrepreneurship candidates, I was soothed to hear that I wasn't alone. I wish that expressing and the discussing stress of expectations was more commonly accepted.
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I also thought that his comments about mixing up passions and interests was intriguing. One of the ways in which he distinguished between passions and interests was based on your level of knowledge and involvement in the subject. Despite mentioning differences between passions and interests throughout the interview, it seemed as though my friend sometimes used the words interchangeably. For example, when discussing recruitment for his entrepreneurship fraternity he mentions being skeptical of individuals that say they have a passion for entrepreneurship without mentioning being interested in "startups" or "organizations that foster creativeness."
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At one point in the conversation we had a discussion about why he thinks his interests aren't productive uses of his day. His answer revolved around feeling as though he doesn't accomplish anything while engaging with his passions. I think this is an incredibly relatable feeling.
Currently, I am trying to figure out how to spend my gap year. My own preconceptions that this year must be used in a productive manner cause anxiety. After my interview with Peter I began to question these notions.
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Who gave me the impression that every second of my gap year had to be used productively?
Who defines what productivity means?
Why might people think that time must be spent pursuing a passion or pursuing some other productive goal?
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These are all questions that I had- and still have. Society seems to value acts that are productive. For example, when my roommates and I see each other at the end of the day we frequently ask "how was your day?" It's a pretty simple question. But I've noticed that our answers seem to be focused on our productivity that day. For example, when my roommates ask me how my day was tonight I'll probably say "it was good. I sent some emails I needed to send and got a lot of work done." However, if they had asked me how my day was 3 days ago I would have said "not great. I watched too much TV and ate too many chips." Truthfully, that wasn't a bad day. It was actually a pretty good one. Watching TV was relaxing and the chips were delicious, but for some reason I still didn't consider the day a good because of my lack of productivity. I hadn't fulfilled my own expectations of what work I had wanted to get done.
Similarly, Peter mentioned how he enjoyed playing games but didn't find them to be a productive us of time. He didn't consider the option that playing games could be a productive use of time. To him productivity was defined based on following a passion or achieving some amount of measurable work.​
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I have the same struggle when thinking about my gap year. I feel a pressure to spend it only in ways that I have defined as productive. As of now this means considering what job I intend to get. However, a job is only part of the experience. I should feel free to consider other activities productive and should enjoy my time even in activities that aren't productive. For example, what places would I like to travel? What hobbies would I like to explore? Are there any new skills that I would like to learn? Are there any causes or organizations I feel compelled to volunteer for? These are all questions I have yet to consider.
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I lived in the Michigan for most of my life. But, as others know, my parents moved to Texas a year ago. Who's to say I shouldn't spend my time exploring different regions of the south? Similarly, one of my interests is baking. Mesmerized by Instagram and Tiktok clips, I often find myself lost in the world of lifelike chocolate sculptures, perfectly layered entremets, and gooey caramel drizzles. When I have free time I enjoy testing out new cookie or brownie recipes to share with my friends. If I choose to spend more time improving baking by learning new techniques, that should be considered a productive use of time because I would be strengthening my ability to do something that brings me joy.
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I don't know why people feel stressed about using their time productively. It might be beneficial to consider giving ourselves more leeway with what we consider productive uses of time. Likewise, every second of our day doesn't have to be spent productively.
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At the end of our conversation we discussed a few concepts regarding obsession. Listen to this below.
My friend mentioned noticing the word obsession being misused. He discussed the over normalization of the word obsession. He suggested that people might overuse the word obsession to avoid acknowledging the dangers of their real obsessions. This seems especially true when considering that he defined obsession as an interest that is uncontrollable. Control is a highly valued idea in peoples lives. Everyone wants to appear as though they are able to control events, situations, and the general course of their life. For people that laugh off their obsessions, admitting obsession would mean admitting that there is an aspect of their lives which they can not control. This is an undesirable outcome for two reasons. First, it would alter how one perceives themselves. Second, it would alter how other people view them. People tend to avoid giving other people reasons to view them negatively.
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As an example of the negative effects of obsession my friend used the example of coffee. I appreciated the point that proved using this but want to make one thing clear. In my opinion, coffee can be an obsession. There are many times in which it is considered more of an addition than obsession.
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From my first interview, I was left with several key observations. First, my friend differentiated between passion and obsession in the same way that harmonious passion and obsessive passion were differentiated by Vallerand. Next, despite knowing his own definitions it was still easy for my friend to misuse words. Finally, the topic of addiction squeezed its way into the conversation. I spent some time pondering the difference between addictions and obsession.
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I think the line between obsession and addiction is clearer than the one between passion and obsession. When I started pondering this idea for myself, I instantly thought about drug or alcohol addiction and how attempting to detox from these could lead to varying levels of withdrawal. I turned to a website called ChangingMinds.org. It is dedicated to education and “all aspects of how we change what others think, believe, feel and do.” They have a page dedicated to explanations of compulsion, obsession, and addiction. According to them, obsession requires thinking about something for a significant amount of time. On the other hand, addictions are chemical. They stated that addictions are hard to give up because they have a neurochemical basis instead of a psychological one.
​I wanted to explore the topic of obsession more so I turned to yet another peer- Andie. She met with me to discuss her obsession with Taylor Swift and general thoughts about the topic.
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Right off the bat, Andie stated that she is obsessed with Taylor Swift. Specifically, she discussed Swift's lyricism and her ability to produce thoughtful and compelling music. In the beginning of our conversation she acknowledges not liking Taylor Swift at one point in her life. Then when Folklore was released she began to become more interested. Shortly into our conversation I asked her how being obsessed with Taylor Swift has impacted her life. Listen to this chunk below.
I thought it was interesting to listen to Andie's commentary on how the obsession impacts her dating life. She stated that hating Taylor Swift is a red flag. Throughout my research I had mostly been considering passion and obsession as a personal topic; affecting only inner struggles and motivations. I hadn’t considered how it might affect our desire to form relationships with others.
Now that I’m thinking about it, it is something that I’ve heard time and time again. I’ve had multiple discussions about how it is easier to make friends with people that you have things in common with. Even in my own house, I see the truth in this. I currently have 8 roommates. It is a lot of people, but it's manageable because our house has 2 kitchens and 2 living rooms. I enjoy each and every one of my roommates. But, I will admit that I am closer with some of them than others. For the most part, these individuals are those who have similar interests.
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If somebody has a serious aversion to a topic or activity we feel strongly about it creates conflict. When taking this into consideration it makes sense that we might feel drawn to individuals who have similar passions or obsessions.
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Next, I asked Andie if she thought her obsession had a positive or negative impact on her life.
She quickly responded that her obsession had a positive impact on her life. This directly contradicted what Peter had stated. When discussing his opinions on obsessions, he felt that obsessions were mostly negative influences. I was intrigued by the differences in opinion these two individuals had. This prompted me to ask Andie if she thought that obsessions could be a negative influence. Take a listen.
She quickly responded that obsessions could also be negative by using unhealthy relationships as an example. Generally, she separated passion and obsession based on the type of action. She seemed to suggest that passions are things that you enjoy doing while obsessions are fixations. Earlier Andie had stated that she was obsessed with Taylor Swift. However, her description of her own obsession didn’t leave me thinking that she was fixated on the topic. She enjoyed her music and had a deep appreciation for what she does as an artist. I hesitated to believe that she demonstrates the level of fixation and dedication required for her own definition of obsession. I wondered if Andi had any thoughts regarding misuse of the words.
"People don't put as much importance on words as they should"
Her answer mentions using the word obsession when passion might be more fitting. Interestingly enough, Andie recognized her own misuse of the word. She mentions that she is passionate about good songwriting and successful female artists. This influences her stating that she is obsessed with Taylor Swift. When asked why the words might be misused she mentioned that people might not place as much importance on words. They might not understand the value of words. She also mentions that the terms obsession and obsessed have usages as slang. People frequently mention being obsessed without considering what the word actually means.
I was beginning to see a common theme. People generally seem to recognize obsession as different from passion. They seem to agree that obsessions require as deeper levels of engagement or interest. However, their acknowledgement of the difference doesn't stop the terms often get misused. This misuse likely stems from a variety of different reasons. These include fear of admitting one's actual obsessions and overlooking the value of words.
I admit that I am guilty of misusing the words as well. Like Andie had mentioned, I tend to use the word obsession casually. Just the other day, my roommates and I were getting ready to go to brunch. Naturally, we all wanted to wear the perfect brunch outfit. After many minutes discussing whether this would be a jeans or leggings event and what top paired best with which pants, we emerged from our respective rooms. “Oh my gosh,” I uttered while looking around. “I am obsessed with these outfits.” Was I actually intensely dedicated and fixated on our outfits? No. Did I intend to spend a large amount of time pursuing our outfits? Also no. In that instance the word obsessed meant that I liked our outfits and appreciated the time we spent getting ready.
The interviews were encouraging because they suggested that I wasn't alone in feeling the negative effects of passion. There is a societal trend of young adults feeling negative emotions because of the pressure to pursue a passion. At the same time there is general misuse of the words passion and obsession. But why exactly is this important?
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Personally, I take comfort in knowing that I'm not alone in my stress.​
Somewhere along the line I decided that if I wasn’t head over heels in love with my job I was destined to be unhappy forever. It's easy to imagine how that expectation caused me to put huge amounts of pressure on myself. At each fork in the road I wondered if I was leading myself towards disappointment.
After watching the various television shows, doing research, and having discussions with my friends, I feel more at ease. I'm able to think with more of a cultural mindset and acknowledging that this isn't a me problem.
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I realize that this project may sound like a stressed senior's attempt to justify her doubts about her career plan. To some extent this may be true. I will openly admit that I am stressed about the future. But I think this project has transformed my perspective on passion past trying to justify doubts. I knew that I would find a job in medicine to be intriguing. But I am now more comfortable admitting that I'm not as passionate about it as other people may be. I'll be just as good as a physician without living at the hospital 24/7. Taking time for myself is ok.
I'd like to think that the information presented is useful to consider for other individuals as well. I want to push back against the expectation that people should be incredibly passionate about their jobs. We should make it acceptable, if not normal, to only tolerate a job. I know many individuals who work to afford the aspects of life which they do enjoy.
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For example, one of my friends is moving to Boston in August for his job. When he talks about life post graduation, he doesn’t mention being excited for his job. Instead, his face lights up while discussing moving to a new city, being able to make new friends, trying new restaurants, learning how to cook, and spending more time golfing. He views his job as a means through which he will have access to other parts of life. He won’t hate his job. He’s not head over heels in love with it either. To him, his job will be an aspect of life that is tolerated- not amazing but necessary.
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Similarly, we need to be cautious about our usage of words and our constant need to achieve. We could be disguising actual harmful obsessions or slighting the problems of others.
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For those stressed and worrying because they might not have a career passion,
for those whose passions are overwhelming and exhausting, and for those who are nervous they aren't being productive enough... I hear you. Let's burn our parachutes and work towards letting go of the unnecessary pressure we put on ourselves to find the perfect job. We can be satisfied with jobs that we don't love, or jobs that we are merely interested in. ​
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It’s important not to despise your job. But it doesn’t need to be your passion either.​