Don't Just Follow Your Passion: A Talk for Generation Y: Eunice Hii at TEDxTerryTalks 2012

Eunice Hii, a recent graduate of the UBC Sauder School of Business, talks about the challenges of "following your passion," especially as an individual who is, herself, part of the "Generation Y," and viscerally aware of the many opinions that inform that term. Here, she suggests that one can still follow their passions, but with a number of important parameters in mind.

November 3rd, 2012. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Filmed by Craig Ross: Video edited by David Ng

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

[petercohen]

“It doesn’t mean anything to follow your passion if it isn’t in the service of others." ~ Eunice Hii

That's her core message. Saved you 20 minutes

[Fofsl]

The reason for all the TED Talks contradicting each other is that we look for guidance and are attracted by people appearing self-confident, successful and inspiring. It is not the content, we are actually looking for.
STOP believing there's one way to achieve something.
STOP following others. There's simply not just one way that is going to work.

You for yourself must find purpose. No one can do that for you.
Just start somewhere and find inspiration for yourself.

Living in a world full of information how can you know which advice is good? You simply can't.

STOP watching Ted videos or any other of that kind if you're still looking for one goddamn purpose and just start doing.

[TimeFliesGames]

Let me summarize the morale of this video in a sentence:

Do follow your passion, but make sure to do something useful with it and work hard.

It's that simple really, and could've been said in about 2 minutes.

[victoriachamberlaincrooksh]

Wow, not sure why there are so many hateful comments on here. I thought this TED was really interesting because of the posed question of passion vs entitlement. She did a great job of explaining the balance of passion AND hard work, and I loved what she said about how you need to follow your passions- even if it isn't you job. That's a realistic down to earth approach that I feel like doesn't get circulated very much. I also appreciated her thoughts on redeeming the Y generation. This TED was great!

[xlapse]

I love how all of TED Talks often contradict each other.

[sethtwilliamson]

"Love the work you do. This is not 'do the work you love.' This distinction is important." ~ Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011)

That one bit helped me through a complete paradigm shift and find joy and motivation in what I was doing instead of desperately searching for a calling that I felt defective for not having.

[TransparentLabyrinth]

I think a more accurate name for Generation Y is "The Generation of Confusion." I mean, consider that the development of the web in its infancy and the explosion of information and media that followed has exposed Y to so many differing perspectives and differing influences from a young age.

No one knows quite how to handle so much information and influence, not even Y itself - and certainly not the generations that preceded it. These TED talks being so accessible on the web is a perfect example: Tons of knowledge, stories, perspectives, information, and Y is supposed to do something with that?

This idea that Y doesn't understand hard work is a confused perspective. The assumption, to me, is that hard work means long work days and stressing yourself out, but spending hours on facebook or twitter is laziness. And although this looks correct, intuitively, it's missing something vital in the equation: That there's nothing particularly relaxing or idle about repeatedly refreshing a webpage, hoping for updates (it actually indicates addictions and other such awesomely debilitating things but that's a topic in itself).

In fact, the tragic mistake of accusing Y'ers of being lazy and incompetent for not exerting themselves in the ways that previous generations have is that it implies a malfunction on the part of Generation Y. It implies that it's the fault of the people, first and foremost - never mind the fact that half the world is telling Y'ers not to overwork themselves, even as older generations are telling them that they're lazy and wasting their lives.

I think the tragedy of Y'ers is that they have so many well-supported perspectives and influences at their fingertips, all during some of their most vulnerable periods of growth, that it's hard to nail down things like passion and work and purpose. This information-thick world tells them that if they keep looking long enough, they'll find the correct answer this time. Now this time. And this time. It's a never-ending search that ultimately focuses more on questions and answers than *experience*.

I truly believe that experience - learning to appreciate what you have and learning to sincerely believe that you are worthy of all of it - is the greatest answer you can ever discover for yourself. Once your focus changes to appreciation of your world and of yourself, you can begin to see that passion is not a question or an answer. It's not something you follow; it's something you live. And you can start living it today or you can start living it 50 years from now. The world doesn't care and the rules that you think might stop you, or slow you down, are often more arbitrary than they look.

What matters, ultimately, is that you wake up appreciating and loving your life, no matter what you do or why you do it - or what you want to do and haven't done yet. Because if you don't, then with what energy will you ever improve yourself? Improve others? Improve the world?

[alonsocarrillo]

Don't let people break you only you know what your going to do. It may not be clear but all we do is believe and seek and never quit.

[Gingernaut]

She hadn't graduated and she was giving advice on life chocies?  I guarantee two years after joining the workforce her opinion has changed.  After spending a couple years in the industry, I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt we are not the worst generation.  We are the savior generation.  We are on a quest to revive humanity with or without institutional religion.  We are the ones who want to clean the planet up and ensure our kids don't have to live in acid rain every day.  We have learned the hard way that debt is slavery, and we now live on the pay-go plan rather than borrow now and pay later.  We do like our technology but our social status is not based on material possessions (big house, new car, 3 TV's).  We don't like credit cards.  We don't like mortgages.  We would rather live happily than live large. We value family and friends over money.  Older generations hate us because we choose happiness over corporate prostitution.
I have learned how to live happily making less than 30k a year.  What's your excuse? 

[irascibil]

our generation is the best so far, the one whom start the changing of the world in a better place.

[emilyannemoses]

I was born in Generation Y, and I've been told by older generations that I'm one of the hardest working people they've ever met. No matter what I'm doing I'm dedicated and willing to go the extra mile. I've also been laid off twice in the past 6 years. I probably won't have the big retirement my parents had (since they did have excellent job security until retirement) Don't call me entitled. I am certainly not. I know I'll be working until I die, so why can't I just enjoy doing it?

[GabrielaGotay]

What I like the most about being Gen Y, is the fact that we truly care about making an difference in our communities and the globe as a whole. I think we are not the worst generation. I don't believe any generation is better or worse. We are just different, and now that we are heading to the workplace, we must take the criticism from our baby-boomer bosses and prove them wrong.

[aprilk]

I just read Cal Newport's article and it's not offensive at all. It's very informative and eye-opening. Cal Newport (and myself) are from the Gen-Y generation too. He is sticking up for us by saying 'We're not lazy or entitled, we were simply misinformed by Gen-X when we were being taught as children'. We are taught to believe that we will IMMEDIATELY LOVE a career the moment we start working in it. The reality is, hard work comes first and the love will come later. And that's the hardest thing for Gen-Y's to understand. It also explains why so many of us quit a career that we thought we'd love, before we've even worked through the hard first couple of years. Cal wrote;

"This tough skill-building phase can provide the foundation for a wonderful career, but in this common scenario the “follow your passion” dogma would tell you that this work is not immediately enjoyable and therefore is not your passion."

[aprilk]

I'm glad she mentioned 'helping the community' is as important as doing what you love. To me, the biggest problem is people are selfishly following their passions. For example, it's a 'selfish passion' to say "I want to be a rockstar so I'll have fans and millions of dollars". A 'giving passion' would be to say "It's my mission to address social issues and help people through my love of playing music". Having a passion is wonderful but you're not helping yourself by keeping it locked inside you for personal gain.

[thoperSought]

she completely missed the point of what Newport was saying: "follow your passion" is bad advice when your passion is for hanging out and drinking beer.  

in his book on the topic, he gave lots of examples of people dumping productive jobs to follow passions where they had no skills.  they really, really cared about what they were trying to do, but they weren't doing any good for themselves or for others, because they basically weren't providing any value for anyone.

he also addresses Steve Jobs' quote: Jobs didn't follow his own advice.  he leapt into something for the money, originally on a short term basis, and became passionate about it later.

develop the skills first, then take a leap if you still want to.

[Smilebox]

Follow your passion, work hard and try to make an impact for the community.

[dlwatib]

The reason "follow your passion" doesn't work all that well as advice is that people get the wrong idea that following your passion should be easy and feel natural. They don't understand the reason behind that advice. The reason why following your passion is necessary is that you really have to work very hard to achieve success. If you aren't passionate you won't feel like it's worth it to put in the hours of drudgery to get really good at what you do. The reason Gen Y is "the worst" is that they think success should fall into their laps. They aren't willing to put in the hours. Ms Hii still doesn't get it because she hasn't put in the hours.

[dothedeed]

IMO the speed of change in our generation is so great that there is no real concrete advice. Lots of things that used to be gospel simply don't work anymore and everyone is grasping at straws hoping things don't fall apart. Its like you have to be willing to change professions, standards of living and your whole belief system overnight because nothing is constant and everything is competitive. 

[yiptastic]

critics who say we are the worst generation has no idea what harm their generation has done to the future...

I fully agree with Eunice on the point that having passion is a privilege.  It's a privilege in every way.  The experience that lead to the passion, the ideas that lead to the passion, the people who walked with you for the passion (or those against your passion who further shaped it), the resources...  etc.  

[valeriehartman]

I am 48 and a foreigner, a minority in the US. Covid made me lose the work I was doing. This was a life saver and changer because I chose to follow my passion. I work hard and with no help whatsoever. I am a visual artist and my dream is to work in the music industry. Giving up is so easy because I have no idea whether my hard work will pay off. But I keep going, and I am not giving up.