When should you stop pursuing your passion?

In most cases, never.

Becoming a freelancer was my dream. It took me two years until I had my first client. Nowadays, I work with several clients, and I can almost live off the money I make while pursuing my passion. I never stopped, but there were a lot of moments when I felt that I should have.

Freelancing is a tough game

Everybody that tried getting a client in the freelance world knows how tough it is to get your first clients. There are serious competitors, high expectations, and potentially some low-paying jobs await you. However, you need to make a name for yourself if you don't have one already.

I was really doubtfully about following my passion because it involved facing head on a lot of difficulties. But, I choose to do it.

Following a passion gives meaning to your life, and difficult circumstances that might arise out of the tough road you choose for yourself become manageable.

That doesn't mean you won’t doubt yourself a lot, but you need to keep going. You never know where you’ll make it.

Despite all of these things, is there a moment when you should stop pursuing your passion?

Embracing reality and recalibrating the purpose

I don’t think there is a moment when you should give up. Instead, you need to accept that you will work with an incomplete version of your passion.

I was very optimistic and idealistic when I started freelancing. I used to believe that I would manage with minimal effort to make a career of precisely what I wanted.

The reality of the situation was that I had to compromise and accept that I could not have a situation that is shaped exactly how I wanted in the near future.

Making compromises doesn’t mean that you sacrifice your dreams. You simply need to make them more realistic. You are still on a path towards achieving what you wanted, but you are now dealing with the stepping stones.

I believe this is one of the most difficult things people experience following their passions. Chasing your dream will mean dealing with an incomplete version of it. Some people manage to get through the hurdles and get to the complete version, and others simply give up.

I love writing, but more specifically, I love writing things I am enthusiastic or passionate about. There are things that I found boring to write about, but they help me make money while improving my writing, so I still do them.

This platform is a wonderful place, and it can lead to monetizing your writing directly, which is great. But it takes a lot of time and dedication, and in the meantime, you will have to face reality and all the struggles associated with it.

For me, a middle way to deal with this was to write for clients. I found jobs that I liked and jobs that I needed to do to stay afloat in my life. This is the incomplete version of my dream. Nevertheless, it is very close to what I want to do, and it brings me a lot more joy than pretty much anything else I could do.

I will keep moving, enjoying the process, until one day when I will have the final piece in place for my dream to become a reality.