I went to university to study statistics, and I absolutely love statistics… but I was forced to learn SAS and, fucking hell, I hacked that program to shit… my presentations would have loads of pretty printing, multiple data ingest methods, proper error reporting…

So I switched into CS and liked it a lot… then I took a course on data modeling, which led to a course of Relational Algebra (essentially the abstract logical form of what you’re typing in SQL to your RDBMS) then I went on to become a developer and, while I am multiskilled and able to build UIs and backends and even embedded systems… I absolutely adore data architecture and DB performance tuning.

I really can’t understate how incredibly easy it is for me to look at a query over a system I understand and quickly identify likely bottlenecks and logical errors.

If you re-read my comment, you might notice there isn’t a single “Eureka” moment but instead are a series of them - I think that’s how most of come to be in careers we truly enjoy.

You know it when you go to work and it doesn’t feel like work. It doesn’t feel like an absolute drag to get out of bed.

I’m an HVAC engineer. I love my job, to me it’s like spending all day solving logic puzzles or a detective mystery. I found I was pretty good at it about 6 months into the job, when I figured out a problem the senior techs couldn’t. I enjoy being out and about instead of chained to a desk.

A job/career doesn’t have to be a passion. Just something you don’t dread everyday. My passion is in sports but somehow engineering was something I was good at, it felt satisfying fixing things. I’d never make my passion my job cause I know it would completely ruin it for me.

I started programming as a teen. I didn’t realize I could do that as a job (weird, I know), so I looked into lucrative careers I could do so I could afford to have lots of free time to program. Then I discovered that programming was also a job.

I used to work in the pharmaceutical industry and kept hitting layoffs. After the last layoff, I somehow reached a point of “F*** this” and went to a career counselor. They suggested I read " Do What You Are" by Tieger and Barron. That book helped me to figure out what was a good match for my personality, I switched careers and stayed with that job until I retired.

I end up having similar conversations with college folks (interns mostly). I usually say something along the lines of:

• If there’s something that you’re so passionate about that you’re going to do it regardless, it’s worth taking a shot at making a living at it. Things like writing, acting, and music are really hard to to make it in, but if it’s really a passion, you might as well give it a go. It’s good to have a Plan B though.
• If you aren’t super passionate about something, or you don’t have the starving artist mentality or whatever, next is to look at things you’re good at that you don’t hate, especially if there’s room to grow in them. If you’re good at math, for instance, you could consider being an accountant.
• If you don’t feel like you have any especially marketable skills, then you’re looking for something that’s more broadly available, like retail or whatever. Of you can find something that teaches a skill, that’s a plus.

Broadly, there’s a passion, there’s a career, and there’s a job. There’s nothing wrong with any of those, but people tend to be happiest in that order. I personally wasn’t super passionate about anything, but liked computers, got a CS degree, ended up as a software engineer at a rocket company, and now manage the software organization there. There were other things I enjoyed, but I figured programming was the most marketable, and that’s worked out for me.

What people tend to like or hate the most about where they work are the people and/or the boss, and that can be good or bad pretty much anywhere. Good to watch out for red and green flags when you’re looking.