If I could make my living going fishing
Then I would make my living with a line and pole
Put food on the table pay the money to the landlord
Buy some working clothes ‘cause I ain’t
Making money going fishing like they’re paying at the factory
— From “If I Could,” song by John Prine
While growing up and choosing a career we’re told: “Follow your passion.”
Scott Galloway, an author and entrepreneur, has different advice: “Follow your talent.” Choose what you’re best at, spend countless hours mastering it, he says, and you’ll enjoy success, happiness and financial prosperity. I’m not qualified to argue whether he’s right or wrong. I just offer what follows as food for thought.
It’s been said that if you earn a living doing what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. That, I guess, is following your passion. But what if your passion severely limits your prospects? You might aspire to be a pro sports announcer, but how many such opportunities exist? Or maybe your passion is something you’re not especially good at: you love to play guitar and spend most of your spare time practicing, but you only have the chops to front a local wedding combo.
Following your talent has pitfalls, too. The thing you’re best might be something you don’t greatly enjoy. You excel at math, for example, but have no desire to be a teacher, an actuary, an accountant. Follow your talent slavishly and you could end up trapped in a career that leaves you miserable.
Of course, passion and talent aren’t mutually exclusive. If you choose something you love, you’ll likely dedicate yourself to it and become quite good at it. If you follow your talent, you’ll surely derive some pride and satisfaction just from your competency.
Some fortunate souls have no need to choose: Their passion and their talent are the same. My younger brother grew up interested in and adept at things mechanical. He toyed with shortwave radio sets in his bedroom and built coaster cars in the basement from scrap lumber and buggy wheels. He became an engineer and eventually an executive with a manufacturing company.
It seems most of us build careers that tend toward the practical: we mostly follow our talent. In part that’s because many occupations that inspire passion — musician, athlete, actor, artist, bestselling author — require such prodigious talent that they’re closed to all but a few.
So we become carpenters, electricians, architects, lawyers, dentists, treatment plant operators, magazine editors. We’re capable at what we do. We’re mostly satisfied. We follow our passions in our spare time; that’s what hobbies are for.
One phenomenon I notice in the water sector is that people become operators almost by accident. They need a job. They feel stuck in an unsatisfying career. On a whim, or at a friend’s suggestion, they apply at a treatment plant. And they become both passionate about the work and exceedingly skilled at it.
I conclude that whether passion or talent leads us, the key is to choose something that makes a difference, to family, community, humankind. So when we step away and retire we can say, with pride, “That was my career. I did that.”
