You can ruin your passion by monetizing it

in OCD4 years ago

I think our hobby and our daily job should be way different when you make your hobby as a day job then somehow you will lose interest at some point in time. I guess it happens for most of us unless you are very passionate about what you do. For me, coding is my day job where I write hell lot of code whereas Cooking and Photography is my hobby.

Though I always wanted to become a full-time traveller by taking travel blogging as a job, I know that when you start doing something regularly you lose interest going forward. That's not the case with everyone, but the problem which you will face when you do it professionaly.


PC: Pixabay.com

When I share my cooking photos or my photography, I never wanted to be judged like a professional though I wanted to become like professional by capturing great photos, that will eventually happen when I learn. But the problem is when you want to monetise something you need to be a professional, if not you will actually lose interest going forward.

If I talk about writing an essay about making Litti Chokha, I can with some of my terrible photos of cooking and thus it will look good anyway because people wanted to go through the recipe rather than seeing my photograohy skills. These are like a stress buster for me where I can cook, click photos or combine both of them and not being stressed out. This is because I am doing it for me and not for others. This is what gives me happiness.

Similarly whenever I go to a restaurant and if some dish I really like, I try to snap it because I wanted to do design my food too like that, and thus you become better by doing it.

But the problem is you will ruin that passion if you wanted to make money our of your passion. As I said it's not that everyone who wanted to have money from their hobby will ruin, but again I think that balance has to be there. Say I wanted to cover a story of a restuarnt on behalf of the owner of the restaurant. Now I have to be professional along with that those photos should please the owner. And I cannot create the photos of my choice, because I was making money from passion.

Just like coding too, if I have to build a website for myself I can build it in any way I wanted, but if the same thing has to be done for a client, it has to be of client's choice. Now, you get good clients as well as bad clients, if it's good you are good. But if it's bad and thus this is where the things can go out of hand.

The passion which you wanted to do something for your own will no longer be a passion because you are doing it for others. This is totally different than selling your photos online, there you are your own boss and whatever people are buying are buying your work. There the client can approach you to have modifications here and there, but still, it's up to them if they have to go with the purchase or not.


PC: Pixabay.com

And once the passion is ruined, it ruins for life. That means the passion for something will never be like before. That means if you are good at something that doesn't mean you have to make money off of that something, it can still be something which you always liked to do and will do in your free time like a stress buster not to show off.

Many will not agree with this but still, it is the way I think.

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Agreed, that happens. As hobby you always want to do best. When it's full time and money you want to make best money. 🤷‍♂️
I like photography and its has remained same all the while. But the cooking videos I'm posting is getting me good rewards and that's becoming a regular habit than taking photos 😬

Yes, I think if we share photography without thinking about the money then yes we can do it. But again out here everything is rewards and thus you expect to get good rewards.

Really lovely take on passion. Definitely asking for a debate.

What if you DROP client from the equation? Can one still enjoy being passionate?

Yes you can enjoy being passionate.

But again say for example you are attaching monetization to it and for some instances you are not getting paid like others or actually you are not paid at all, you will eventually think that your passion is not earning enough and thus you jump the ship where there is more money. This happens only when you are attaching the passion to monetization.

If you only have passion for doing things for your own, I don't think so you get this problem.