If so, how? Have you always known what you were going to do? Did you discover it one day? Did you start at one place and end up in another?
Thank you.
I took a computer class my senior year of high school. This was long before PCs, and involved learning to program in machine language. I took it because there were lots of computers in science fiction (another passion) but the first time I wrote a program, I knew both that I was good at it and that I enjoyed it. Almost 40 years later I still love it, and I’ve structured my job so I can still do it from time to time. My happiest days at work are when I get the opportunity to put my head down and code.
</Geek>
“Have you found your life’s passion?”
No. Still looking. I know it’s in here somewhere …
My big passion throughout my life has been music.
Up until about 7th or 8th grade (around 1974 or '75) I did it because I enjoyed it, it was something I was good at, and I always got into the better ensembles. I started out playing baritone horn then switched to drums & percussion.
Then I met a guitar player in summer school who had an older brother who had an amp. He also knew a guy with a bass (what’s a bass? 
).
Anyway my mom took me over to his house and I set my drums up in the basement. He and his brother then come downstairs with a huge speaker cabinet the size of a refrigerator. The force of the ensuing blast had me instantly addicted to rock-n-roll. It was no longer something I liked doing because it was pleasing to the ear or whatever. It was now pure adrenaline-soaked thrashing ecstacy.
I kept a foot in the classical realm all through HS and College but rock bands is where I really got off.
I never did make any significant money off it, though, for various reasons. I still play in my basement. Mostly guitar and keyboard but I have an electronic drum kit that I play from time to time.
I was in grade 4 when I was in my first play. All I did was stag leaps across the stage during the parade scene in The King and I, but I was hooked. I was acting in community theatre all through my childhood and teen years while wanting to be a biologist. In high school I took every science course that was offered and knew that I wanted to work with animals. I was taking advanced chemistry and biology and skipping out on taking any electives. I remember a school counselor questioning my course load, and making sure that I needed some easy classes too. I applied to College for Science, got accepted, and then had a realization. I needed to be creative so I called up the College of choice, asked to switch majors. I started with a Major in English and a minor in Theatre.
My first year of College I was taking mainly English courses and some Acting, my second year I took my first technical theatre course and found that I was spending more time working on that one course than the rest of my course load combined. I figured it was time for another change when I didn’t read a single novel in my English Lit course and worked on every play I could. So I switched schools again, this time to a College that had a technical theatre intensive program and I haven’t looked back. I am working full time as a Technical Director and get to do fun stuff like blow things up and figure out ways to realistically kill people (but not really).
I might not make as much money as I would have if I stayed with science, but I get up every morning excited about work, and I have fun.
My wife and children are what I live for. My job is a means to provide for them. Honestly, I care little what I’m doing between 8 and 5 as long as they aren’t ashamed of it and it pays good.
That said, I do have a couple of things I’m passionate about, but they don’t pay worth a damn so are considered “hobbies”.
Growing up I always thought I’d be an aerospace engineer just like dad, but then I discovered how much math was involved. I still am kind of puzzled how I ended up in this field. 10 years of running gas stations don’t really prepare you to test fibre channel devices, nor does a degree in environmental science. I guess I ended up doing what I’m good at regardless of what I wanted to do. And since I’m good at it (not great, I’m not bragging or anything) it’s more fun than a lot of other jobs I’ve had.
Just turned 39 and I still don’t know what I want to do with my life (except care for the previously mentioned wife and kids).
My passion is knitting.
When I was about 17, I randomly decided that I wanted to learn how to knit. I don’t remember what put the idea in my head, but I started asking around to find someone to teach me. Turned out, no one around me knew how - the only knitting family member that I knew of was my grandmother, and she’d given it up years before when her arthritis got too bad. It never occurred to me to look into a knitting class, so I sort of set aside the idea and moved on.
Five or six years later, I mentioned my desire to learn how to knit to a friend. She said, “hey, I knit…I can teach you.” She sat me down with needles and yarn and showed me how to knit and purl. My first attempts were wonky and uneven, and after a few hours I said “okay, I know how to knit now…I think I’m done.” I put the yarn and needles aside and didn’t think much more of it.
A couple years after that, the knitting bug bit again. I bought Debbie Stoller’s Stitch and Bitch to give myself a refresher course on how to knit, and I was off. The knitting thing just built and built until I had needles in my hands almost constantly. A few months later I started reading knitblogs, and I was a goner.
Now, a year and a half after starting my own knitblog , I have just finished Donegal, a twelve-color stranded colorwork sweater knit at 7 stitches to the inch. It was a huge project, crazy complicated, and I loved every moment of it.
Unfortunately, knitting isn’t exactly a bill-paying pastime.
Music was my first love. I started picking out melodies on the piano with one finger, when I was three. By the time I was 10, three piano teachers had given up on me, because I could play complicated music by ear, but I could not learn theory or how to read music. I progressed to drums, and then it was John Lennon who made me want to learn to play the guitar. It was too hard at first, so I learned to play bass along with Paul McCartney on the records. I started my first professional gig as a bass player when I was 14. I played in groups until I got to hang out in basement studios, and got work as an occasional session player. I wanted it, with fire and passion. But it wasn’t to be.
Meanwhile, my voice changed from boy soprano to deep baritone, right around the time when I discovered radio. I really, really wanted to be a part of that. I would hitchhike all over the countryside to go to radio stations and meet the jocks and watch them work, and I wound up with a real gig in radio. Eventually, I left radio to go back to music. By the time I was able to play with my fingers what I heard in my head, music had changed so much that there was no market for the music I played anymore.
Fast forward… I had been living here in Florida for eight years, when a position came up at a radio station, six years ago. I applied for it, and won it. I taught myself digital editing before I worked here, and got very good at it. This came in handy, as they were just transitioning from tape to digital when I arrived, and nobody knew much about it. Last December, I was promoted to job-for-life, and I expect to be here until I’m old. I have no fear of losing my job because the station was sold and changed format and they fired the staff, which happens with alarming regularity everywhere else in town but here.
Radio has changed drastically since I started in it, and everything we did by hand is now done by or on computers. Still, my voice is heard all day, every day by an audience in the six figures, and I get to create and produce high-quality programming that they didn’t used to have. That translates to higher ratings. I get to teach people how to do things they didn’t know before, that will help them later in their careers. I’m in my element. So yeah, I’ve found my life’s passion, and I realize how lucky I am to be able to do something I’ve always wanted to do, and get paid for it.
No, and I’m finally realizing that I may never find it. Wouldn’t I know what it is by now? (I’m 26)
There are things I like, things I do for fun, things I don’t mind doing…but nothing that fills me with a sense of purpose and fulfillment. Nothing that could see myself doing for the rest of my life.
I was in a career I hated, that I knew pretty much from the beginning that I was a poor fit for (and vice versa). I went through difficult and expensive schooling, floundered around unemployed for a while, and finally got a good job. After working there for about a year and saving as much money as I could, I realized that I had to get out of it THEN, or risk being trapped forever. So I resigned from the job and walked away from the entire profession, much to the shock and surprise of everyone I knew.
Now I’m back in school for Library Science (and I’ll be finishing up and earning my Masters at this same time next year), and I have two part-time jobs in my new industry, in two very different kinds of libraries. I love it, and I feel at last that I’ve found a good fit for myself. The schooling is interesting (sometimes), but I’ve already started building a fantastic resume with plenty of good experience in the last year and a half, I’m networking and making contacts and impressing them, I continue to live simply and save money in the meantime, and I fully expect to end up with a decent career where I can make a good living, enjoy what I do, and even make a difference in the fight against ignorance. Walking away from a decent job and reinventing my entire life was a bit intimidating, but I only wish I had done it sooner.
When I was really young I was into art. Then I got older and got into writing.
I was able to combine that with my love of organization and rules (you heard me!) to have a pretty lucrative career as a Web designer. Specifically, database-driven sites.
It involves art, writing and organization and then a bunch of rules (programming). I didn’t set out to do this by any means (my degree is in journalism) but I fell into it and I love it and I am quite passionate about it.
Don’t be so sure, and don’t give up trying. I have definitely found my passion in life, and I found it at about age 30.
Brewing beer is the perfect blend of art and science, and it is my passion in life without a doubt. But I remember telling my wife, when I was around 26 in fact, that I hated beer. That was mostly because the only beer I had ready access to was corporate mega-swill.
I was given a homebrewing kit when I was 28 and it sat in my garage for 2 years until I decided to try it, basically out of boredom. My first batch failed spectacularly and I was determined to find out why. I started reading more and more about processes and ingredients and I was hooked.
Flash forward to now, and by some miracle I am the Quality Assurance Lab supervisor for a major midwestern regional craft brewer. I am involved in creating new recipes, testing beer for adherence to quality standards, and I get to travel to beer festivals and talk to other beer geeks.
I have had at least 200 people tell me I have the greatest job in the world, and I think I agree with them.
I have a friend in brand management and I realise this is what I would really really love to do for a living. However, I feel going back to school for an MBA so I could get interviews at companies would be irresponsible and I like making my own money. Plus, I feel incredibly guilty at all the resources I’ve spent (mine, my parents’, the federal government) to get my education and licenses.
Big Bad Vodoo Lou, I wish I had the guts!!!
I feel like my life hasn’t started yet and is already over, but I do have a modest passion for fabric and quilting. I don’t think my designs are very exciting but the workmanship is good and I just like petting fabric. They seem to make others happy and that’s satisfying. Plus I share the hobby with my mom so we bond over it!
According to this article the former department head of my work found his passion at a lecure. If it were only that easy for me.
Thank you all for sharing your stories! Variety and intelligence are what makes the SDMB such a great place. 
AWWWWWW!!!
I guess I’m a lot like Bobotheoptimist. The only thing I’m truly passionate about is my family.
As far as stuff I do, I was passionate about music early on but, guess what, no talent. Just a little success in learning it might have sustained me, at least to the extent of making it a hobby, but it wasn’t to be.
I write software. I’m pretty good at it, and I really like it. It’s not exactly a passion, but it’ll have to do, I think. If I can improve upon it, I will.
My passion is dog sledding…I follow most long distance races like a maniac…and I predicted Lances dual win…GoLanceGo®… 
SnowDogsGo,
tsfr…aka, daniel
I really enjoy my career in computers, being in this field for many years, but this isn’t my true passion, and I didn’t know my true passion until recently.
20 years ago I lost a family member to suicide, and this has always stayed with me. I have always had a latent desire to do something to make a difference in someone’s life so that they might consider living. Of course, that’s a fairly vague concept and I really didn’t have the foggiest idea what I could do.
About four years ago, an interesting chain of events led me to consider volunteering at a local crisis phone line. I signed up for the training, not sure what I was getting myself into.
I have been on the phones one or two evenings each week ever since, now approaching 1000 hours. In this time, I have spoken with hundreds of total strangers about their problems. Many call just to talk about the day’s troubles. Others call because it’s the only way to make it through each day. Usually folks aren’t suicidal; they just want to vent.
About once a month I get a true suicide call, and it is these times when I feel that I am able to use what I learned in my own family experience and fulfill my true desire to help someone in that state of mind.
I have spoken with young children, elderly folks, and all ages between, who were struggling with suicidal thoughts. I sent the police to someone’s house exactly once (with the person’s permission), and that person survived.
The most rewarding part of this work is when you come in and see in the message log that a person you spent an hour talking with late Saturday night called back two days later to say that things were much better and to thank you.
This is my true passion and calling.
Like many people I find my life’s passion is unexpected; based on who I expected to be. I’m a student of humanity and getting good at it too. I understand people in a way that takes a lot of stress out of living.
Growing up you could have called me an “anti-social nerd” but looking back in time, the ingredients for this interest were always there.