I followed my passion. And it didn't pay the bills.
This article is born from a disillusionment with the world of work. That shared feeling that the future we were promised did not arrive.
This article comes from two things. A message that moved me — someone who read one of my pieces wrote to me: "I got laid off. I have a family. And for the first time I felt like this industry isn't forever. I need a Plan B."
And a post I saw recently, about the disillusionment of Gen X and millennials with the world of work. That shared feeling that the future we were promised never arrived: not the house of our own, not the stability, not the deep sense of purpose we were supposedly going to find in offices with foosball tables and beer.
But there's something else too. This reflection is happening in a place where uncertainty isn't just emotional: it's structural. In Latin America, the job market is more fragile, informality is more common, and the margin for error is much narrower.
That's why talking about work is talking about much more: the self, desire, fear, the future, what hurts, and what we can still build.
Work is our psychic support
It doesn't just give us money. It gives structure, rhythm, recognition. It's one of the most powerful ways we organize ourselves in relation to others. Work structures how we see ourselves and how we want to be seen: it holds up an ideal image of ourselves — someone useful, competent, worthy.
Part of our identity is built on what we do. We introduce ourselves saying "I'm a designer," "I'm a developer," "I'm a manager." And when that role collapses, how we see ourselves wobbles too. That's why, when someone loses their job, they don't just lose income: they also lose part of their personal narrative. The blow is symbolic and emotional.
But the mistake is thinking that's all we are. We're also parents, siblings, friends, movie buffs, Sunday cooks. Widening that view isn't avoidance, it's a way of recovering forgotten parts of our subjectivity. Because if everything is placed on a single role, the fall becomes total.
Freud already said it: work is a channel for sublimation. We funnel part of our psychic energy into it, turning drives into something socially acceptable. But also, as Enriquez pointed out, work acts as a symbolic frame: it structures time, gives meaning to the days, holds identity together. Without it, many people feel like they're floating.
And there's another key point: work can be a source of mental health, as long as there's recognition. If what we do is seen, valued, and makes sense, it strengthens us. If that bond breaks, distress shows up. What hurts isn't just working a lot: it's working without meaning, without an echo, without a place.
Work holds us up, but it's not enough to hold us up completely. And maybe that's the first step: recognizing its importance — and also its limits.
The broken promise: what we were told and what actually happened
Study, work hard, follow your passion. We were promised meaning, stability, growth, and a better life than our parents had. We were told we didn't have to spend 20 years in the same job. That now we could be free, do what we're passionate about, and that eventually it would pay off.
They sold us corporate culture as if it were community. Purpose as if it were belonging. And emotion as if it were support. The illusion was tempting: be yourself, but with a paycheck. Do what you love, and get paid for it.
But that supposed freedom came with invisible conditions: endless goals, flexibility with no safety net, total responsibility placed on the individual. If you don't make it, it's because "you don't want it badly enough."
Something deeper is at work here: an inner voice that never shuts up, that demands nonstop, that always pushes you to do more. It's not just external pressure, it's something cultural we've internalized. One that punishes us even when we deliver. One that turns any pause into guilt, any limit into failure. That's self-exploitation: when the demand no longer needs a boss.
The result was something else. Demand. Self-exploitation. Salaries that don't stretch far enough. Burnout. Anxiety. And a constant feeling of failing, even when you do everything right.
Because following your passion not only failed to guarantee the lifestyle we expected — it also left us more fragile in the face of change.
We moved forward with enthusiasm, but without guarantees. And that's where it hurts: when the promise isn't kept, but we still blame ourselves for believing it.
Every generation carries its own weight (and this is ours)
This isn't about idealizing the past. Previous generations lived through their own crises too. What changes is the type of promise and the type of rupture. Today's conflict lies in that feeling of having done everything "right" and it still not being enough. That's where the anguish comes from.
And there's also a temptation: staying stuck in criticism. Criticizing the generation, the market, the economy. And yes, criticism is necessary — but not enough. If it doesn't turn into action, it becomes a trap. A way of postponing hard decisions and handing the context the power to decide for you.
Tolerating uncertainty (because that's what living is)
There are no guarantees. Work was never a certainty, even if it used to look that way. And maybe it never was — we just see it more clearly now.
Psychoanalysis doesn't offer quick fixes, but it does offer an invitation: to make room to think. To accept that the lack of total control — castration, psychoanalysis would call it — isn't a glitch in the system, but part of what we are as subjects. Not everything can be planned. Not everything can be controlled.
Taking charge doesn't mean having all the answers. It means not staying stuck in waiting. And understanding that a fuller life won't come from the context: it will come from what you decide to do with what's there.
But it also needs to be said clearly: thinking doesn't solve end-of-month stress. Reflecting doesn't pay the rent. That anxiety is real and urgent. That's why it's important not to pit the practical against the subjective, but to integrate them. Reflection doesn't replace action: it guides it. Because when everything is shaking, we need to act — but we also need to know where we're acting from.
From criticism to movement
It's not just about pointing out what didn't work out, but about asking yourself: what do I want work to be for me today? What place do I want it to hold? What can I build, even in the middle of uncertainty?
Building a Plan B isn't about protecting yourself from being laid off. It's about having a fuller life. One where work matters, but isn't everything. One where we can hold more than one identity, open more than one possibility, and not reduce our whole life to a single work role.
That Plan B starts with three moves: reflect, try, share. Not to find certainties, but to widen life. Not to escape the real world, but to inhabit it with more internal and external resources.
There's no manual for this. And there are no universal answers either. There are only questions that press on us with force: What place do I want work to have in my life? Where is my desire, beyond the fear? And what can I build with what's actually there — even if it isn't perfect?
Following my passion didn't pay my rent. But I also don't want to live disconnected from what matters to me. So today I choose another path: neither idealizing nor resigning myself. Think. Try. Share. And, above all, take charge.
