Yes it is okay to hate what you love sometimes.

Why?

Constant, 100 percent emotional passion doesn't exist.

I’ve heard many people say, “I don’t really have a passion.” On the surface, this sounds really sad, and somewhat pitiful. But in reality, it’s more likely that these people don’t have a passion because their idea of passion doesn’t exist.

Now last time, I wrote about continuous motivation and I defined passion as “what makes [your] heart beat faster.” And in essence I suppose that’s true, but what many people view as passion — an all-encompassing, burning love and meaning—often isn’t. Passion isn’t simply something you feel all the time. And while this sounds contradictory to passion being the source for continuous motivation, the idea of continuous motivation is much more about being internally vs. externally motivated (a.k.a. being active) than about being in a constant emotional high. Of course, this isn’t to say that there aren’t emotional highs tied to passion, but passion itself is not only about emotions.

Take me as an example. By definition, stories, writing, art, friendships, and God, are my “passions.” I find life and meaning in them. They bring me joy and I ‘actively’ (of my own free will) pursue them. However, this active pursuit doesn’t necessarily make me happy all the time. As a matter of fact, sometimes, I hate doing what I do (what?!).

Well, let me explain. Happiness and intrinsic joy are two different things. Writing, for instance, gives me a sense of purpose — and I know deep down, that writing is an essential part of my "dreams." But right now, at midnight, I really don’t want to be writing this article. I don’t want to be up at all. And secretly (shh, the public can’t know), I kind of want to quit. Secretly, at this moment, I hate the fact that I have to upload and share an article and face responsibility and social media. I hate the fact that I have another writing assignment (due tomorrow) which I haven’t even started.

Yet the key phrase is “at this moment.” At this moment, I’m not having a ton of fun writing. At all. But that doesn’t mean I never have fun writing. In fact, I often enjoy writing — just not right now. What I do feel instead, is a reluctant drive, a sense that I’m somehow being productive, that I have an innate reason to be striving toward a dream I’m really not feeling in the now. And that is passion. Even with the temporary absence of fun stripped away, that core persistence is still called passion. Even though my heart is beating fast only from stress, I still have passion. And that goes for all of my passions (am I overusing the word passion yet). I love art, but I don’t want to draw all the time. I love great food, but I don’t want to eat all the time. All I do know is that there’s a force inside that will continue to direct me back time and time again to these things that I love.

In this sense, passion is kind of like marriage. Yes, marriage and romance brings the butterflies and the honeymoon craze, but it also brings fights and disgust and a general dislike for your partner here and there. But for both passion and love/ marriage, the important thing is that you remember why this dream started— you think back to the earliest times, and you let your heart beat again. And in the end, both passion and marriage transcend their emotional facets. They become something like a mission, something that requires hard work and effort without the initial bliss — something you might hate and not always like, but care enough about to nurture. Like the best of friendships.

And for most people, this marriage idea is common knowledge, though there are many couples that maintain romantic emotion throughout. As such, it’s kind of odd to think, when the subject is ‘life passion,’ that the same people believe that passion has to be something absolutely grand, permanent, and constant when in reality, it’s the fruit and labor of interest. Most people as a matter of fact, don’t have that fairytale belief whether its for their studies/ career or something else. They simply looked at something and thought, “Huh, I think I sometimes kind of like that.” And they believed the price of its pursuit to be worth it.

So even if you’re feeling lost around people who seem to be going toward their dream job at full speed, it’s most likely an illusion. And they’re all as lost and stressed as you (and if they’re not, give me their number — teach me how to life). I know this to be true, because others have told me: “Wow it’s nice that you have a dream and that you’re working for it. I wish I could find my passion.” And on the receiving side, I’m just thinking that I have lots of dreams and they aren’t always so sparkly as they appear and that I don’t like things as much as or as often as I appear to (Harry Potter is the exception; I’ve never not liked Harry Potter). Yet I still have a dream and it’s probably not too different from yours, whatever you might call it. Or maybe you have something you can’t call a dream because you haven’t accepted it yet (cough, me in High School thinking I had to be a doctor or a lawyer).

Whatever it is, most people probably have some sort of spark, a seed of interest that can be watered and fed into a goal, and a sliver of identity. And it’s not something grand — it’s just fun to pretend and look at it as if it is. Of course, projecting an image (essentially, dreaming) isn’t always a bad thing; it’s just not always true. Yet paradoxically, even if it only happens in your head, as J.K. Rowling says, “why on Earth should that mean that it is not real?”