I write here frequently about passion and purpose. Passion and purpose is like the soulmate of your activity here. I am thinking of soulmate in the following context: there is never one perfect person; we have many soulmates. A soulmate is one in a million. We do not like everybody we meet, but when there is a connection there is new life. Something like fireworks inside of you. The best relationships are calm, slow rolling, growing as time passes, and finding new light through the changes we experience. You will change, your soulmate will change, maybe not in figure, but definitely in experience.
Passion and purpose are the same in that way. Some people find something and they stick to it for the rest of their lives. Some people change the passion over the different chapters of life. For example, someone may choose to work in a restaurant during their earlier years, and love the creative outlet of creating beauty in the dishes that are made and the way they are presented, but later find that the time free from work is limited and so choose to invest their time in switching to a job that continues the creative form that they love without the long hours by working in software. So the passion didn't really change, there is still interest in creating beauty through what they did, but the form, experience, changed.
To others it may appear like a switch from restaurant to software is insurmountable, and so some people are stuck in where they are, and it takes some combination of a strong belief in self and a support system whether through family, videos, or friends. Let's leave that for another time. Back to the original point of how soulmates, passion and purpose are similar: it is important to understand what you like about what you do in the same way it is important for you to understand what you like in a partner. When you find something you like, something that makes you feel sustainable joy, it is important to ask yourself questions like:
- Why do I like what I'm doing?
- Do I like the people around me?
- Is the role that I'm playing a fit for my personality?
- Do I have room to grow?
If the answer is yes to these four questions, it is a good path to be on. Please make sure you're actually doing what you want to do and not pleasing someone else's dream of what they want you to be. That is a path without fulfillment and full of self-hatred. To help answer the question of it is fo you or for someone else, think of how you will feel after having accomplished your life's work / career. Are you satisfied with the image of who you will become, and what you will accomplish in life.
“I learned that if you work hard and creatively, you can have just about anything you want, but not everything you want. Maturity is the ability to reject good alternatives in order to pursue even better ones.” - Ray Dalio
When you find what you want, remove other pursuits, and focus. Discard negative thoughts about your dreams or what people think you're capable of, they don't even know themselves fully, how could they possibly know the entirety of you. We are limitless.