Probing the ominous side of career advice to "follow your passion," this data-driven study explains how the passion principle fails us and perpetuates inequality by class, gender, and race; and it suggests how we can reconfigure our relationships to paid work. "Follow your passion" is a popular mantra for career decision-making in the United States. Passion-seeking seems like a promising path for avoiding the potential drudgery of a life of paid work, but this "passion principle"—seductive as it is—does not universally translate. The Trouble with Passion reveals the significant downside of the passion principle: the concept helps culturally legitimize and reproduce an exploited, overworked white-collar labor force and broadly serves to reinforce class, race, and gender segregation and inequality. Grounding her investigation in the paradoxical tensions between capitalism's demand for ideal workers and our cultural expectations for self-expression, sociologist Erin A. Cech draws on interviews that follow students from college into the workforce, surveys of US workers, and experimental data to explain why the passion principle is such an attractive, if deceptive, career decision-making mantra, particularly for the college educated. Passion-seeking presumes middle-class safety nets and springboards and penalizes first-generation and working-class young adults who seek passion without them. The ripple effects of this mantra undermine the promise of college as a tool for social and economic mobility. The passion principle also feeds into a culture of overwork, encouraging white-collar workers to tolerate precarious employment and gladly sacrifice time, money, and leisure for work they are passionate about. And potential employers covet, but won't compensate, passion among job applicants. This book asks, What does it take to center passion in career decisions? Who gets ahead and who gets left behind by passion-seeking? The Trouble with Passion calls for citizens, educators, college administrators, and industry leaders to reconsider how we think about good jobs and, by extension, good lives.

A deeply-reported examination of why "doing what you love" is a recipe for exploitation, creating a new tyranny of work in which we cheerily acquiesce to doing jobs that take over our lives. You're told that if you "do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life." Whether it's working for "exposure" and "experience," or enduring poor treatment in the name of "being part of the family," all employees are pushed to make sacrifices for the privilege of being able to do what we love. In Work Won't Love You Back, Sarah Jaffe, a preeminent voice on labor, inequality, and social movements, examines this "labor of love" myth—the idea that certain work is not really work, and therefore should be done out of passion instead of pay. Told through the lives and experiences of workers in various industries—from the unpaid intern, to the overworked teacher, to the nonprofit worker and even the professional athlete—Jaffe reveals how all of us have been tricked into buying into a new tyranny of work. As Jaffe argues, understanding the trap of the labor of love will empower us to work less and demand what our work is worth. And once freed from those binds, we can finally figure out what actually gives us joy, pleasure, and satisfaction.

This volume provides a comprehensive understanding of passion for work by addressing the origin of the concept and its theoretical issues: how can passion for work be developed, what are the consequences to be expected at the individual and organizational levels, and how can passion for work shed new light on contemporary issues in the workplace.

In an unorthodox approach, Georgetown University professor Cal Newport debunks the long-held belief that "follow your passion" is good advice, and sets out on a quest to discover the reality of how people end up loving their careers. Not only are pre-existing passions rare and have little to do with how most people end up loving their work, but a focus on passion over skill can be dangerous, leading to anxiety and chronic job hopping. Spending time with organic farmers, venture capitalists, screenwriters, freelance computer programmers, and others who admitted to deriving great satisfaction from their work, Newport uncovers the strategies they used and the pitfalls they avoided in developing their compelling careers. Cal reveals that matching your job to a pre-existing passion does not matter. Passion comes after you put in the hard work to become excellent at something valuable, not before. In other words, what you do for a living is much less important than how you do it. With a title taken from the comedian Steve Martin, who once said his advice for aspiring entertainers was to "be so good they can't ignore you," Cal Newport's clearly written manifesto is mandatory reading for anyone fretting about what to do with their life, or frustrated by their current job situation and eager to find a fresh new way to take control of their livelihood. He provides an evidence-based blueprint for creating work you love, and will change the way you think about careers, happiness, and the crafting of a remarkable life.

If you are feeling like you have been settling for a mere job or paycheck - STOP! Regardless of where you are in your career, this book offers you a proven five-step process for discovering what you are meant to do... and then shows you how to do it! Read this book and you will find your own answers to: - Why are you working so hard? - Discovering your passion - Assessing your proficiencies - Setting your priorities - Making your plan - Proving your plan

One of the Best Feel-Good Books of 2021 by The Washington Post A hilarious and honest not-quite-self-help book in the vein of Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies and I Used to Have a Plan. Every person on the planet wants their life to mean something. The problem is that you’ve been told there’s only one way to find that meaning. In Unfollow Your Passion, Terri Trespicio—whose TEDx talk has more than six million views—questions everything you think you need: passion (fun, but fleeting), plans (flimsy at best), and a bucket list (eye roll), to name a few. Instead, she shows you how (and why) to flip society, culture, and the #patriarchy the bird so you can live life on your terms. Trespicio effortlessly guides you through her method of unhooking yourself from other people’s agendas, boning up on the skills to move you forward, and exploring your own creativity, memory, and intuition to unlock your unique path to meaning—while also confronting the challenges that stop you in your tracks, like boredom, loss, and fear. Unfollow Your Passion is a fresh and fearless “must-read for anyone looking for a more meaningful life” (Mel Robbins, author of The 5 Second Rule).

This volume derived from original presentations given at a conference in Atlanta, Georgia, under the auspices of the Center for Child Well-Being. Scholars, practitioners, public health professionals, and principals in the child development community convened to address a science-based framework for elements of well-being and how the elements might be developed across the life course. Integrating physical, cognitive, and social-emotional domains, Well-Being is the first scientific book to consider well-being holistically. Focusing on a set of core strengths grouped within these three domains, the book also includes a fourth section on developmental strengths through adulthood that broadly examines a continuum of health and development, as well as transitions in well-being. This volume takes a developmental perspective across the life course, describing foundational strengths for well-being--the capacities that can be actively developed, supported, or learned. These foundational strengths--problem solving, emotional regulation, and physical safety--are the positive underpinnings of early child health and development, as well as ongoing well-being across the life course. Working together and blending their respective disciplinary perspectives and expertise, 53 experts in psychology, sociology, child development, and medicine have contributed to the book.