Don’t Let Your Passion Burn Out

Josh Felgoise (00:00.204)

Welcome to Guy's Set, a guy's guide to what should be talked about. I'm Josh, I'm 24 years old, and I'm here to find all the tips, advice, and recommendations for everything you're wondering about. Let's get into it.

Josh Felgoise (00:17.806)

Hi guys, welcome back to guyset, a guy's guide to what should be talked about. Last week was Rosh Hashanah, which is the Jewish new year, if you don't know what that is. And what we do on Rosh Hashanah, as I'm a Jew, is we have beside for like two family dinners, which we do every time. It's the first night and the second night of Rosh Hashanah. We go to services at a place called synagogue. Some people call it temple. More religious people call it a shul. I'll call it temple for this sake of the story here.

I usually call it synagogue, but either works. doesn't really matter. And at Temple, what we do, we, some people go two days. I go one day. You can go both. I skip work on one day. I felt like it was a lot to skip work on two. It's a, it's a whole thing. But anyway, at Temple, what we do is we listen to prayers. We try to follow along and recite them and understand what's happening. We sit, we stand the whole nine yards. You know what I mean? And the big thing that everybody waits for at Temple is the rabbi's sermon, which

If you don't know what a rabbi is, the rabbi is kind of like the person who creates the vibe or the atmosphere and the energy. He really sets the stage for that service. besides for being a hype man, he also like tells you what page you're on and where you are in the Sidor, which is the book you attempt to follow along with and guides you and then truly guides the whole service. Like that is his job at that. He's like a priest or you definitely know what a rabbi is. I don't feel like I need to explain that any further, but

In case you didn't, now you do. He's not just the vibes guy, he's also like the person who leads the whole thing. So anyway, what he does is he gives a thing called the sermon, which is near the end of the service, and it's kind of like the second to last episode of the series. It's like the climactic moment that everybody's been waiting for where like something really big happens with the characters, but you still have like an episode to close it out and to conclude the whole service. Like you still have that last episode.

But everybody waits for that second to last one because you know something big is going to happen. And that's what everybody's really excited for throughout the service. You want to hear what he's going to say and what the sermon is is kind of like this length of a podcast I'm about to do right now. And it's based on that week's Torah portion. I feel like you know what a Torah is. I don't think I have to explain that. If you don't, it's like the Bible for Jews. And after our rabbi who's new to our temple, he's 29 years old. So I feel like I really relate to him a lot more than I have with the

Josh Felgoise (02:38.574)

past old ones who I just probably didn't pay as much attention to. Didn't not probably I just didn't pay as much attention to because I don't think I related to or felt as compelled to listen to. I don't know. I was just being like a twerpy kid as we all are. And when we have when we're forced to go to something, I turned to my sister after his sermon and I was like, that would be such a good podcast episode. Like what he what he just said was so impactful to me. And I wanted to kind of share some of the message that he shared with me on or share with the temple or the congregation on here.

but in my own words and then kind of make it my own, which is what I'm gonna do today. And obviously you know me well enough now at this point, 71 episodes in, or if you're just joining me, hi I'm Josh, I'm 24 years old, and you know that I'm not rabbinical, or like really that preachy or spiritual, sometimes I preach and that gets like a little, I can get a little preachy, but I'm not somebody you follow for spiritual, religious beliefs, obviously. I don't think I have to explain that to you.

I want to take the lesson in it because I think it's really it was really important and really really resonated with me and you'll understand why soon when I get into the story. But not all sermons or podcast episodes if you look at it that way hold an equal value to somebody or resonate with them as intensely as somebody else.

And some can be tremendously boring and not resonate with you at all. And as I'm sure you've heard some episodes on here where you've been like, like that was fine. Like he could do better. And some that are much better than others. Like not every episode or sermon is created equally. And this one happened to particularly stick with me. And not just because I feel like I actually intentionally listened to this one, but also for other reasons. You understand in one second, because now I'm going to talk about it. So the rabbi started with a story about the writer and the artist.

Now I'm gonna do my best to spark notes it or tell what I remember of it. I don't have his like script of it. I just I'm just doing it kind of off the dome and off whatever what I remember from it. And I'll probably flub it and make it my own most of the way. But you'll get the gist of it no matter what. So the writer and the artist were a new couple. They were both enamored by their passions respectively of writing and of artistry. And they made as much time as possible in their day.

Josh Felgoise (04:53.048)

to write and to make art. They would leave work and they would spend their hours after work doing whatever they could to fit in their writing and their art. At some point when they realized how much time they were spending doing other things they weren't as passionate about, they thought to themselves, if this is what we love to do, then why shouldn't we be doing it all the time? Why shouldn't we be doing this as our jobs and our careers? Why couldn't it be our jobs and our careers? So the writer proceeds to get a job as a copywriter.

and the artist proceeds to get a job as a graphic designer. They both now get to spend their days doing what they love. Their nine to five jobs become what they love to do. Whereas before, they could only use the time in between and after work, now they can spend their entire days focused on their passions. Before, they used to run home to be able to paint and to write.

Whereas now when they get home from their nine to five jobs, they're exhausted from work as I am a lot of the time and I'm sure you are a lot of the time. It's a lot of, it's a lot to have to find time to do what you want to do on top of your work and you get home and it's like, fuck, how do I make time to do that? The rabbi did not say fuck by the way. That's, that's me. That's yeah. Okay. One day of I am so tired. I'm just going to go sit on the couch and relax and watch TV became two days, became a week, became a month and then became a year.

The artist and the writer both completely lost sight of their passion, why they used to love it and why they did it in the first place. What was once days filled with running home to try and get to write and to paint, now became days of exhaustion and wanting to sit on the couch and do nothing. The rabbi proceeded to talk about how when we're forced to do something, we become so much less interested in that thing. He then related that to Judaism and how there is no right way to practice and to celebrate being Jewish and the holidays.

how you can find religion in any way, or form. And your way will look incredibly different from your friends and your brothers, but no way is right or wrong. Now I wanna stick with the passion and the career thing because that message really resonated with me as I've done this podcast for over a year now and had to make time outside of work to do it. I've been that I'm so exhausted from work. I just wanna sit on the couch and watch TV and do nothing many, many times. And I don't think that's a bad thing by the way.

Josh Felgoise (07:09.56)

just as long as it doesn't block out your passion. You may be in a place right now where you used to be super passionate about your job and have started to just kind of feel like you've lost interest. Or you may not be passionate about your job whatsoever. Or the complete opposite, you may be completely passionate about it and this may not resonate with you that much. If you're in the boat that your passion and your job are crossing over, I consider you a very lucky person.

That doesn't mean that your job and your passion don't come with their hardships and their pain points. But if you find meaning in your work, then I just think you're really lucky right now. So I'm more so talking to the middle ground people, the ones who may have had a passion for something or never really did and just are kind of struggling to find that and struggling to know what they want to do with their career and their life and how to kind of find meaning and passion in that because that's what we spend most of our time on.

And the problem with combining passion with work is that's the easiest way to lose it, to lose the passion. It's like reading a book for school. When you were in school and you were forced to read something, it was like genuine torture and you would want to do anything beside read that book. But now if there's a story or something you're genuinely interested in reading, it's great and you would read it for fun. And I don't know if you're in that camp. I'm I am I like my friends always say that I don't read because I talk about it sometimes on here, but I

I genuinely like to read sometimes and I and like a good example of that is I recently read the outsiders, which a lot of people have read for school. I never had to for school. And when I talked about it with like a friend or something, they were like, wait, you didn't read that for school. Like it was just like the worst. And I was like, no, it's such a good book. But I read it because I read it for fun. And I read it because I was interested in the story, not because I was forced to go chapter by chapter. And that's a great example of when the passion or the energy behind something gets burned out by the work.

When interest becomes forced, it becomes less interesting. So how do we fill that gap? How do we glue those two things back together? The answer I think comes from the lesson of the story I just told, or that I was told too and now I'm relaying to you. And I think there's only one way to do it wrong. And the only way to do it wrong is to neglect your passion or what drives and excites you. See, the hardest part about being an adult is we have to find the ways to make it our own.

Josh Felgoise (09:29.292)

And I don't really believe in the 5 to 10 minutes a day or the hour a day to get to where you want to go. I think it's finding the ways that it works for you. There is no right or wrong. The only wrong is neglecting it and never doing it. The only wrong is giving up on it. Letting it slip out of your hands and not ever picking it back up. Seeing it on the floor beneath you and stepping over it and walking away. We're forced to find ways to keep the fire burning

when it simmers and the embers are starting to burn out, when we're exhausted from our long days, when we have no time to make it happen, when we're filled with thing to thing to thing and we have to answer our boss and our emails and every single thing that's going on in our day, and there's literally no time to make it happen, we're forced to find the ways that make it work for us. And I know this is a vague answer to the question I posed, I completely understand that and I know that's not what anybody looks for when they come to a podcast episode, that they want answers, they want tips, they want recommendations, they don't want a vague,

find the way it works for you. But I find it to be the only way. When somebody asks me how I make time for my podcast, I find the way it works for me. It's not a scheduled every single day at this time I make it happen here. I do this and this and this to make it happen. I find the ways it works in my day as every day looks different for me with a different job that I had last year and there's different demands and different requirements I have to meet on this week versus last week. I have to find

how to make it work for me. I have to find the little ways in the pockets of my day and the time where I feel the most energized and catch those moments of, you know, like magic and not let them burn out. Catch the moments where I feel like I hit the spark and I lit the match and not ignore or neglect those times.

And that may be sometimes in the work day and that may be afterwards or at night or in the morning or there's there's so much going on every day that it's so much easier to just be like, I don't have time for it. I can't fit that in my day. I have to work. I can't do that because I have to do this. It doesn't have to be that way. It doesn't have to be black or white. It doesn't have to be we have you have to do that for five to 10 minutes a day or an hour or else you fail. Then you can never do it again. It doesn't have to be doomsday if you don't meet your goal that single day.

Josh Felgoise (11:46.634)

I completely agree that it is really, really hard to find time for your passion and find time to make it work throughout the day. But I call bullshit on the fact that there is no time to do it. If there's something that you've been wanting to do, start, learn, and you don't have the time to do it, I kind of call bullshit on that. You have to find the way that it works for you, for your life, how it can fit into your day. And like the rabbi said in his sermon,

It's supposed to look different from the next person. It's supposed to look different from your friend and from your brother and from your girlfriend and from your sister and from your whoever the fuck. It's supposed to look different. It can't look the same because we all have different schedules and different lives and different days and just different situations overall. The way you make it work will look different than the next person. But that doesn't mean it's not the right way to do it. As long as you're finding a way to get your passion in, you're doing it right. As long as you're doing the thing that you've

wanted to do or starting or learning or just trying it, you're doing it right. The only wrong way to do it is ignoring it and neglecting it and never doing it. There's only one wrong way. That's the lesson that I took away from this sermon that I heard. And that's what I wanted to share with you today is, is we don't have to let our passion burn out because there's no time to do it.

I find that I derive the most purpose and meaning from the moments or the times that I'm able to work at my passion or to spend time on my passion. And it's different times that every single day, the times where I've tried to schedule, like I want to do this, this, and this, and this, I've just been disappointed in myself and I find it to not work for me. And that may work for somebody else. That may work for you. It's just not for me. I

I'm more sporadic with it because every day looks different for me and I'm not able to have that every single day for 30 minutes at this time. And I just don't, that doesn't work for me. So it, it, it doesn't need to. And that's a conclusion I've come to over the past year that like, if something isn't working, don't force it, but find the way it works for you. Just don't let it burn out.

Josh Felgoise (13:53.548)

And I think the world in which your passion and your job overlap, you find yourself as one of the lucky ones. Like that is an incredible thing to be able to have every single day. That what you're passionate about is what you get to spend your days doing. And I believe that the artist and the writer didn't have to stop working at their passion of writing and art just because they were doing it as a different job. I think they got lost in it. And I think they lost sight of what their passion was and why they loved it in the first place.

That's the only way to do it wrong when you when you truly lose sight of it and you can get it back I'm I don't know the end of their story and I hope they got it back and if you've lost it, too I hope you find your way back to it, too And it will look different from the next person It should look different from the next person and I hope you find your way back to it And if you haven't started and you've been wanting to and just not finding the time in the day, maybe today's your day

Thank you so much. Listen, guys said a guy's guide to what should be talked about. I'm Josh. I'm 24 years old and every Tuesday I come on here to talk about what should be talked about for guys in their twenties. Sometimes an episode looks like this where I just talk about something that happened in my week that I really wanted to share with you. And sometimes it's a little bit more tips and recommendations and practical applicable things that you can apply to your everyday life. And that's the cool part about being able to do this is that I can change what I want to do every single week. I completely changed what I want to talk about for this episode because this felt more impactful to me. And I really wanted to share this with you. So

So if you have anything you want me to talk about that should be talked about send to my email it's josh at guys at.com j o s h at gu i s c t dot com or to my dms at the guys at th g u i s e t or on instagram tiktok any of the things if I said I really did please give this podcast five stars in the review that's one two three four five on apple podcast Spotify wherever listening I appreciate that thank you so much I really love all of you for listening thank you I genuinely appreciate it really so much you can also ask questions on the newsletter down below in the show notes or on my reddit r slash guyset thank you so much for listening and I will see you guys oh my god that was so fucking fast

Thank you so much for listening and I will see you guys next Tuesday. See you guys.