Do You Just Need to Try Harder or It's Time to let it Go
Originally written on Sunday, November 9, 2025
I'm just like you, having so much interests I'd like to pursue as a creative practice or career. But where to find the energy? I don't know either.
However, if there's a video essay I won't shut up about, it's when Creative Pep Talk discussed Passion-Mastery Matrix. It helped me plot the things that captured my interest according to how masterful and passionate I am towards it⸻ enough to sustain it or just let it go.
This also applies to jobs! This helped me weigh my passion and mastery plus the burnout, now I took the leap of faith and quit my job and now it feels lighter.
I am now focused on things that truly gives me joy not because it makes sense in late-capitalist lens
So, what does this mean?
- High Passion, Low Mastery aka Curiosity
- For side projects, or just dipping your toes.
- It doesn't make sense yet. It should either move to Flow or Shoulds
- Staying in this stage is not healthy or sustainable, like when we are stupid when running on infatuation.
- High Passion, High Mastery aka Flow
- Perfect state, pure bliss, YOU ARE A GOD.
- Make this sustainable by finding the balance between mastery and challenge.
- Don't make this your job.
- Passion might diminish. It's not about rejecting monetary gain but it's about not letting the power of who has the money take over your creative and intellectual freedom.
- Everything might feel personal.
- Low Passion, High Mastery aka Craft
- This should be your job.
- Masterful enough and mildly passionate enough to not get too attached.
- "I don't want this, my passion is not here" ⸻ and that's okay! Don't discredit the things you're good at!
- Your financial gain from your job can fund your passion projects.
- Low Passion, Low Mastery aka Shoulds
- Should let go -> Unlikely to get masterful because you don't have any passion to anchor with.
- The only time this is worth your headspace is to identify it to get rid of it or dutiful.
- You just feel dutiful about it.
Not everything stays in a single quadrant! I had a melodramatic case of a job that I had where in I started from Curiosity, then briefly to Flow then dawned on me that this is a job-job so it went down to Craft, until I got burned out it went down to Shoulds. In a span of almost 2 years.
I used to believe in the western co-opted version if Ikigai, you know, the Venn diagram.
On paper, it's nice to focus on a single thing that has it all⸻ passion, mastery, financial gain, vocation. Surely, in theory, saves time and energy because ideally I am hitting 4 birds in one stone. But it made me feel drained during the process because this one thing taking most of my time and headspace, I neglected my other interests, and work became my personality⸻ like a goddamn innie from Severance.
I learned that the true meaning of Ikigai is just simply reason for living. It doesn't have to make sense in western/capitalist lens, (perhaps they added the financial gain part). My reason for living has to make sense for me first!