What's Not Your Passion Project?

I get the term, "passion project." I've used it myself. Ok. It's supposed to mean a project you're working on that you absolutely love and don't expect to make any money from. It's about passion, not profit.

But...still. It feels...awkward. It seems like a loaded statement. Does it mean that you believe you can't make a buck off of something that you're purely passionate about? Does it mean that you're not passionate about the projects that you are making a buck off of?

I'm sure it sounds very Pollyanna to you to say that every project should be a passion project. It sounds that way to me, too. Really, it's' not always possible for everyone all the time. So maybe we do need the term. Or maybe we don't. Maybe using the term just reinforces a differentiation between actual work and doing stuff that's authentically us.

And in an age when everyone is supposed to have a "side hustle" or ten going at any given moment, maybe there actually is a need for a resurgence of the "passion project" or something like it. Or maybe this whole "side hustle" mania is just another symptom of the cult of busy, something we'd do well to send the way of the myth of multitasking. Or maybe not.

What do you think?