you poor SOB… 
I kid I kid
Personally I dream of one day being able to make a living at poker. Love the game, but still have a hell of a lot to learn. Bisggest win to date ~ $6000
Teaching, and that was always clear to me: I wanted to be various academic things growing up–astronomer, archeologist, writer–but in each of these visions, I was teaching those things, not practicing them. By the time I graduated high school, it had become apparent to me that academia would force me to work really hard for a lot of years doing things I was indifferent about to get a job doing what I really wanted to do, whereas I could be teaching high school in four years. Other things happened and it took six, but that is more or less what ended up happening. I am teaching now and I love it. I even love the parts I hate, because I know they are part of the package.
What has suprised me is how much I enjoy the being part of a high school ommmunity: I enjoy the instruction part, of course, but I also love the football games, the dances, the plays. I love knowing families, teaching siblings and cousins. I never get bored.
Just as well you said “I kid”
Otherwise I may have had to mention Reading
I am pretty sure that finding my “life’s passion” is the pursuit of my life’s passion… slap my but and call me Godelian…
FML
I’m still searching for it. I’m 100% certain that what I’m doing now isn’t it… so I’ve applied to go back to university. We’ll see how that works out. Worst-case scenario, I figure if I end up with a degree in Biochemistry and one in Mechanical/Aeronautical Engineering, I should be able for find something I can stand to do for the rest of my life!
Career-wise I have been all over.
15 years ago I graduated as an Industrial Designer from the best university in the country. Finding a job wasn’t too hard, graduates from my Alma Mater are in demand. I got a cushy job, pay wasn’t great but you can’t expect more when all you have is zero work experience. I very soon grew bored.
I got a job in the boonies working for the largest exporter in the country as shipping coordinator simply because I spoke fluent English (and it was hard to hire people that would move to the boonies). I met my now-husband there and we were soon pinning for the city lights. My last job looked really impressive in my resume, but I needed to know more, so I headed back to university, did a minor in Maritime Law, got accreditation as a Custom Broker (I never got a license, I only wanted the knowledge) and took every course available that was related to my career. I later got accredited as ISO 9000 Lead Auditor, and got a job as Operations and Quality Manager at a medium-sized shipping company. I loved my job for a few years. Then I got burned. I couldn’t stand it a day more day.
By then I had started my websites as a hobby. It was something that combined my passion for cooking, my love of our culinary culture, my ability to write semi-intelligently, and my love for all things design (graphic design, photography and computers). So I quit my job and became a part-time homemaker, part-time business woman (I have a small business that I run from home) and part-time web-designer.
We (my partner in the website and I) have written a book about Dominican Cooking that I decided to produce from scratch, it took us years to complete because of my perfectionist nature and because I decided to do it all by myself. I am very proud of the results. Our websites are my work almost in its entirety, which meant that I also had to learn PHP (when we migrated from HTML).
I can say that although my work promoting Dominican culinary culture does not represent a significant income for me it is mostly because I want to keep it that way. My work is what makes me the proudest about myself.
It only took me 30 years to find my passion.
I found both of them (cooking and travel) and neither pay very well. I suppose you could get rich off of either of them, but I stand a snowball’s chance in hell of really making it. I like to think I have a lot of natural talent at cooking, but I’m really discouraged at the prospect of a restaurant career.
So I’m following in my husband’s footsteps and heading to law school so I can afford to travel and throw fantastic dinner parties. And have a super-sweet kitchen.
I’ve found two.
Number one:
one of my first memories, which I’m told is from when I was barely three years old, is of being under the table at Abuelita’s. Actually, given the age, it must have been Los Abuelitos’, he was still alive, but my image of him (not having been reinforced through the ages) is more vague than those of other people present. Abuelita’s house had a small room beside the kitchen where I was supposed to play so I wouldn’t bother the grown-ups. The living room was set up in such a way that if I was careful I could sneak in without being seen and quietly set up shop under the table, which had (has, my aunt owns it now) a huge central foot instead of one at each corner. So, I remember being under the table, playing with this wooden construction set, while a visitor (my great-aunt, she’s a cousin of Abuelita’s) talked about her recent trip to the South Cone. She’d spent several months there; first she’d been in Peru, where she’d stayed with a nephew of Abuelito’s who is a diplomat; then she’d gone to Bolivia and Argentina.
And I knew that when I grew up I wanted to be a widow without children and with a good pension so I’d be able to travel around and spend time in Places Abroad without my parents!
Later I discovered the deceased husband and retirement age are optional 
Number two:
I love being able to un-scare people. My job consists of helping people in times of corporate change (I prepare a huge computer program for people, and people for the program); change is always scary, there is always fear and resistance. It’s so cool, being able to turn people’s fears around and get them thinking of this change as “an opportunity to be able to do the stuff our old program didn’t let me do” instead of “aaaaah! Corporate is trying to get rid of me!” or “ohmyGod, it’s totally different, I’m so bad at computers, I’ll never learn it.” And seeing the the first time one of them asks me a question and it’s one of his own mates who volunteers the correct solution.
In those instances where I haven’t been able to do this, it’s usually because they’re doing the change for all the wrong reasons… if the company’s CEO is the first one who doesn’t want anything to change and doesn’t want people to own their own processes, they bloody well should not hire me. There’s lots of consultants out there who are happy to get paid for not being a part of any solutions.
How can I drool and applaud your knitting acheivements if your links are broken?
My passion?
My goals in life are pretty unfocused and hazy, but one constant has always been: laughter.
Knitting is up there, too.