I am 25 years old female, 130,000 (php)/month ang sahod. Iyong trabaho ko 7am to 3pm lang, 25 years old female, 130,000 (php)/month as a programmer engineer for about a year now. Walang problema sa buhay, mga kamag anak lang na madrama. Walang bisyo kundi Netflix, snacks, tamang exercise lang para makapg jollibee ng walang guilt. Kahit travel wala. Naghahanap ng rason sa buhay. Wala rin jowa. Di ako mapakali, yung ibang kakilala ko may mga side hustle tapos feeling ko dapat ako rin. Since bata pa naman ako tapos may energy pa. Kung kayo sa sitwasyon ko, hahanap pa ba kayo ng part time job? - Anonymous
English Translation:
I am 25 years old female (sic), earning 130,000 (php) [roughly 2,300usd] per month. My work is only at 7am to 3pm, 25 years old female (sic), 130,000 (php)/month as a programmer engineer for about a year now. I don’t have life problems except for relatives who are a bit dramatic. I don’t have any vices except Netflix, snacks, and just the right amount of exercise that can afford me (eating at) Jollibee without any guilt. I don’t travel either. Searching for a reason in life. I also don’t have a boyfriend. I (feel) anxious, other people whom I know have side hustle(s) and I also feel that I should have one too. I’m still young and full of energy. If you were in my situation, would you be looking for a part time job? - Anonymous
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The above text was a question posted at the Work is Life PH community’s advice corner to which I quickly made a response that you can read here. Despite having responded and sharing my advice of the author’s situation, her question of whether or not to do a side-hustle while earning a 6-digit income (an income with surplus, which would make the lower and middle-income households extremely jealous), has left me in deep contemplation.
It further cemented my belief in the importance of knowing how to ask the right questions so that one may be able to uncover life’s most important answers.
I, however, cannot blame the framing of the author’s question.
Although the Philippines is a developing nation and our economy is slowly recovering from the onslaught of the pandemic, majority of the Filipinos continue to live paycheck to paycheck, if not on the red (i.e., taking out loans).
We also have a prevalent culture of spending and as a consumer-driven economy, it is typical to believe that happiness can be found in the most materialistic way: the latest gadgets, the frequency of affording to dine out, the privilege of being able to travel locally or internationally.
Additionally, due to complex macro-economic factors, the wages in the Philippines continue to be low (forcing highly skilled individuals to work abroad for better pay), while lower and middle-income households try to get by either by taking out loans, living within their means, or engaging in side-hustles to increase their earning capacity. These socio-economic behaviors have influenced a culture of hustling — whereby the drive to earn extra income outside of the 9-to-5 are encouraged and celebrated (rightly so).
I remember getting slightly triggered1 when receiving DMs from previous classmates, colleagues or acquaintances whom I haven’t spoken in ages: after we say our basic hello's and how-are-you’s, I’d then get offered direct selling, MLM & networking, insurance, crypto & several other investment schemes (sometimes I do get solicited for donations with questionable causes or get requested to borrow money from too).
I am surrounded by hustlers, and I do admire their drive and passion to fully realize their income potential.
This is where I go back to the author’s situation. She currently earns more than the average Filipino income-earner, albeit an income surplus too. She is young, independent, and has plenty of time, energy, and most importantly — resources to pursue other activities. And the question she asks is: should she do a part time job?
I felt sad when I read that question. This is by no means a judgment to her, but my genuine empathy on her want for more clarity. Even with her disconcerted question, I sensed her desire for meaning … a reason for being. There was a deeper craving for life … that there must be more to it than her 7am-3pm job and her 130k salary.
She saw a glimpse of that answer in the eyes of her peers: they have the drive and passion for success through their part time jobs; while she was wealthy, comfortable, and content … yet why does she continue to feel anxious?
This is an illustration of how money and wealth generally doesn’t lead to a happier and more meaningful life. Her independence, contentment and gratefulness with her current situation are to be admired notwithstanding; after all, she is living the comfortable life that most of us can only dream of. However, as part of human nature, it is only expected that she feels the innate need to have an ambition, to experience drive and passion — like having a side-hustle same as her peers, for example.
This is where I want to redirect her question. She may indeed have plenty of time, energy, and resources to pursue anything that she wants. Although by pursuing a part time job as per her original question may seem like she wants more money, it seems to me that the deeper reason behind her desire is because of what she saw in her peers: drive and passion for success.
Her peer’s drive and passion are fueled by their aspirations to increase their income potential — this is different from the author’s situation who isn’t in need of additional income.
It seems to me that her desire comes from wanting to have an ambition so that she may also have the same fire (drive and passion) as her peers. It is to have an ambition and so that she may experience a greater sense of accomplishment … that her goals are aligned with the meaningful work that she does and that makes her feel more alive.
The question isn’t “Should I work a part time job” but instead, the question needs to be “What makes me feel more alive?”
Humans are wired to desire creative and meaningful work. This happens when the physiological, safety, and connection needs are met (all the means for survival are met, therefore allowing the individual to live in comfort and security).
When you’re not living in survival mode, living paycheck to paycheck, nor feeling like every day is a struggle of putting out fires, one is given the affordance to experience life in convenience, comfort, and contentment. However, that does not remove the human desire of a deeper sense of meaning.
Meaning is one’s own interpretation to his effort, his work, his relationships, and circumstances in life. We find value in attaching meaning to these places as a way to justify life’s purpose. It is our desire to understand the world so that it may help validate our existence.
Meanwhile, comfort and security create the human experience of sameness, predictability, repetitiveness: it is where the spaces between the physical, social, and spiritual become (or have the sense of being) known — it’s what makes every waking moment feel familiar and comfortable.
Generally, we experience anxiety whenever we sense danger … it is a suffocating sensation of being enveloped in darkness, discomfort, the unfamiliar, and the unknown.
Ever sense a feeling of dread when you felt like everything in life is working out so well, that you felt that something bad was bound to happen, eventually ruining your peace? That’s anxiety despite the experience of comfort … fueled by an imagined (valid or not) disrupter of peace.
So, despite living comfortably, we may still experience fear and anxiety. That’s our body’s way of calling out to awaken us from our sleep. It may seem quite ironic to feel safe, yet feel anxious at the same time but hear me out on this:
Imagine you’re Bilbo Baggins enjoying your second breakfast in your little cottage at the Shire. Then you hear a knock on the door, it’s an old friend, a wizard with a pointy hat and he invites you to go out on an adventure. You look behind to see your warm bread and coffee on the table. Outside, it feels like the sky is getting darker.
Would you cancel second breakfast and venture out into the unknown with your wizard friend who has a knack of getting in trouble with orcs or a legendary Balrog?
Remember that I mentioned earlier that humans have the desire for creative and meaningful work? That’s because deep in our psyche, we hear an inner calling … that is for us to go out on a great adventure. It’s called the going out on a hero’s journey.
We love pop culture so much because it talks about main characters overcoming villains. They are heroes who have battled their way out of conflict (whether internal or external threats) and survived. They’ve gone out on an adventure and returned a changed person — they were heroic and brave, despite being meek and weak at first.
We crave for that similar experience.
Every hero’s journey begins with the familiar and the known, then a catalyst arrives that catapults the hero to go out of his comfort zone and venture out into the unfamiliar and the unknown. He may have begun a reluctant sojourner but as he fights in battles and survives, whilst colleagues and mentors appear along the way; he persevered and relentlessly fought courageously to be given the affordance to come home.
How then can one experience a version of his own Hero’s Journey in real life? How does this relate to feeling MORE alive?
What we need to feel MORE alive is an avenue to do creative and meaningful work.
It is work where an individual knows that the energy, time, and resources he has put into is deemed as necessary, relevant, and impactful. More importantly, it is work that a person has the passion and persistence to give it the best of his abilities and can genuinely say that it makes him joyful and proud.
It is work that is not only impactful, but also work that continues to motivate the individual to improve his skills. It’s having the affordance of doing meaningful work that progresses — it poses the right amount of challenge which the individual is capable of handling yet also stimulating enough to place the individual on his toes.
Unfortunately, not many of us have the privilege to do meaningful work that can also reward us generously in financial terms.
This is where the concept of a passion project comes in.
A passion project is a creative endeavor that one can partake that is aligned with his interest(s) and allows the individual to experience flow, set progressing goals, and feel a sense of purpose.
Passion projects are driven by intrinsic motivations of autonomy, mastery, and purpose2. It is intrinsic in nature because it is primarily not motivated by external validation nor monetary compensation but is pursued for the enrichment of life.
It is an independent undertaking that is not required of the individual by other people or institutions (i.e., not dictated by family/friends, school, or work). It is an activity pursued with his own autonomy and is done with genuine enthusiasm (i.e., with drive and passion).
A passion project is a creative endeavor where the individual is engaged in activities where the mind or body is stimulated, meaning — that the individual is actively learning, exercising, and/or creating with the intent of skillfully attaining mastery in his chosen craft.
Creative endeavors are not only limited to producing artistic work (e.g., visual, music, literature, or crafts) but also include attaining dexterity in playing musical instruments, learning a new language, gaining proficiency in specific schools of thought, achieving physical health and wellness by working out at the gym or doing yoga, and getting into competitive sports, among others.
Creative endeavors, however, should be drawn in contrast with (passive) activities such as mindless scrolling through social media, consuming bite-sized media and reading hundreds of self-improvement books3, playing thousands of hours of video games, and binging on fiction (movies, series, novels, manga, etc.).
Passion projects engage the individual in creativity4 and therefore immerses him in expansive flow states. Flow is a state of intense engagement, deep focus, and the enjoyment in the present moment.
In his Ted Talk, Csíkszentmihályi (pronounced: CHIK-sent-mee-hy-ee) explains flow as a function of cognitive processing limits: it is the tendency of being absorbed with work, to be in deep concentration with the current activity which then prevents the capacity for other processing (i.e., rumination or thinking, distraction or the awareness of other stimuli — like hunger or the concept of the (passing of) time). He described the elements of the flow experience as: the sense of having stepped out of the routines of everyday life into a different reality, having clear goals every step of the way, immediate feedback, effortless attention, action and awareness merged, balance between skill and challenge, time distortion, and spontaneity.
Flow allows the individual to envision a future through goals — simultaneously being engaged in effortless (present) attention and deliberately nuanced effort towards mastery. In that regard, passion projects create a sense of purpose because it allows for the setting of goals while being engrossed in work with progressing levels of difficulty (engaged in work that is challenging yet attainable).
The goal towards mastery is the call to adventure.
By pursuing passion projects, an individual does not only get to develop his own skills but also learns more about himself — he becomes the reluctant hero and sojourner, out of the known and going to an adventure into the unknown. The question of whether he can slay the dragon and fight his internal monsters, is the question of how much he is willing to change himself (for the better) in order to thrive being thrown into the fire.
Like every adventure, passion projects and creative endeavors all have beginnings.
When one goes out to pursue a passion project for the first time (and even continuously throughout the process), one learns more about himself by experiencing how to be foolish and ignorant willfully from the start — how he approaches a subject that is entirely new and how he struggles and perseveres while being an amateur in the process of learning.
Engaging in activities that are enjoyable (note: creative flow) are worth persevering grueling hours of failures and imperfections, only to learn how to change course with correction and ultimately, mastery. A hero is not only measured by the sharpness of his sword but also the wounds that he’s survived.
The path towards mastery is paved with humility, self-awareness, courage, and persistence.
Aiming at a goal and following it through gives an individual a sense of purpose.
The other aim of passion projects besides mastery is the ability to be greater than the individual and the project itself. As human beings, we crave for meaning and purpose — meaning as the reason why we do it and purpose as the impact we want to have.
Therefore, passion projects are not only an independent and individual pursuit of self-mastery but also a portal to connectedness: a hero saves the world and comes home to rebuild the new world.
In the process of learning and creating, an individual in pursuit of his passion projects is given the opportunities to produce artifacts (i.e., objects that showcase his skills) and share his creative work to the world. This can be in the form of articles published in newsletters, paintings displayed at art galleries, photographs presented in online portfolios, songs played at a recital, and even the manifold contents posted in social media.
The pursuit of mastery forges connections by getting immersed in communities of students, mentors, and teachers — as in the fellowships of hobbits, wizards, humans, elves, and dwarves. The hero not only remains a disciple but becomes a master himself eventually.
Goals in passion projects ignite that drive and passion into the eyes of every individual in pursuit of it. To be immersed in flow in doing creative work becomes a vicious cycle: the desire for connectedness and self-mastery is serving a greater purpose, which then helps the individual create goals to achieve and do what is meaningful.
Ultimately, creative work that is meaningful is not only intrinsically rewarding (enjoyable, interesting, and satisfying) but has the potential to be extrinsically rewarding (validation and money5) too.
Passion Projects help us pursue creative and meaningful work, therefore making us feel more alive.
Creativity allows us to engage in flow and be in the state of heightened awareness to be in the enjoyment of the present moment. Meaning is the subjective and emotional significance that we ascribe to what we do. Work is the activity that makes impact.
To be most alive is when we are deeply immersed in the moment where time is all but a concept, while doing activities that are not only impactful to others, but also personally gratifying, relevant, and important.
The pursuit of passion projects is the trifecta that is closest to ikigai6, the Japanese concept and way of life that gives a person a sense of purpose and a reason for living: doing what you love, doing what you’re good at, and doing what the world needs.
Triggered or traumatized could be a strong word — but I continue to get nervous whenever I receive random direct messages out of nowhere. I am not very keen in receiving these types of promotions and solicitations so to anyone who has offered me one and is reading this, I admire your courage and persistence. Please forgive me if I wasn’t able to properly reject you and if I wasn’t able to read or send you a response. Despite my lack of interest on your offer, I cheer you to continue hustling forward — you are, and you will continue to be rewarded for your hard work.
Read more about intrinsic motivation on Daniel Pink’s Motivation Theory
Bite-sized media include ~30 seconds to ~30 minutes of content in reels, podcasts, photo, video or written formats that may be concise and entertaining but lack the depth to expound on the topic or discuss in a more detailed manner (i.e., lack the expansiveness and knowledge for the attainment of mastery). Separate discussion about this will be posted in the future. Meanwhile, read the High Existence Article on Why Reading Hundreds of Self-Improvement Books is a Terrible Idea.
The process and/or experience of creating, not only in the production of an artistic work, but also the process of meaning-making: reasoning, decision-making, social cognition (e.g., with shifts between the deliberative or reflective thinking and intuitive thinking (fast & effortless thinking). Read Creative Flow as a Unique Cognitive Process.
Monetization of passion projects is one of the steps in the pursuit of ikigai (the reason for being: the things you love, the things you’re good at, the things that the world needs, and the things that can be paid for — and doing all the things that intersect in between).
Read more about ikigai in High Existence’s Article Ikigai: The Shortcut to Your Reason for Being.