College advisors. Grandparents. Pinterest posts. They tell you to find “your passion” or “true calling.” But what exactly does that mean? First off, too much.

In the words of Mark Manson: screw finding your passion. Pardon our language, but his sentiment is simply dead on.

The chase for that one perfect thing that will fulfill your every want and need is not as realistic as your high school guidance counselor hoped it would be. And what’s more, trying to find your “true calling” often idles the rest of our lives and causes us to feel unfulfilled by how we are spending our time. We can be so focused on finding THAT ONE THING, that we miss what that could look like.

Manson writes: “You already found your passion, you’re just ignoring it. Seriously, you’re awake 16 hours a day….You’re doing something, obviously. You’re talking about something. There’s some topic or activity or idea that dominates a significant amount of your free time, your conversations, your web browsing, and it dominates them without you consciously pursuing it or looking for it.”

So maybe our passion isn’t this HUGE thing we seek, but what naturally comes of our days.

An example: An HR Director thinks she should be a Hollywood director. She is frustrated when she sees directors make fabulous movies and win Oscars, but in her free time — instead of signing up to the American Film institute — she reads HR magazines and newsletters helping her do a better job. What is truly her passion?

Another one: How about a paid search optimizer who dreams of climbing the Himalayas, but gets so distracted by constant online searches about advances in search tools and techniques that every weekend goes by without a single moment to train or plan for that hike? Which is his passion?

In her talk, “Flight of the Hummingbird: The Curiosity Driven Life,” author of Eat. Pray. Love., Elizabeth Gilbert, talks about how we need to let go of this search for one true passion and follow our curiosity. She says passion “really is the burning tower of flame in the desert…and that can be hard to see on a random Tuesday.”

She is speaking to the many who think that their passion is something completely different than what they spend their days doing. Who are frustrated with their lives, which are so different from the people they admire or lives they daydream about.

Passion is intimidating. And can be really discouraging.

So let’s take it off the table. Let’s be curious instead.

Manson says, “A child does not walk onto a playground and say to herself, ‘How do I find fun?’ She just goes and has fun.”

At Firewood, we hope our people are curious about what they do. But we hope they have other things they’re curious about, too.

I am a copywriter by day because I love writing and love the creative energy that goes into advertising. I have been lucky enough to “find my passion.” But I spend a good chunk of my free time shopping and scrolling through street fashion on Instagram. The “follow your passion” crowd would certainly scorn me for not starting a side job as a fashion blogger. But am I not following my passion by spending my time pursuing what I enjoy even in the ordinary, curiosity-driven moments of my life?

It seems to me the moments spent on the Muni or over morning coffee are places for curiosity, not passion. And maybe if we make curiosity our goal, we can fulfill all the grandparents’ and Pinterest’s needs for everyone to find their “passions” — without the scary, life-changing stigma attached to it.