Passion vs. desire

I’ve spent part of the last couple of days trying to figure out what Thomas Keller is getting at here with his distinction between passion and desire:

It’s not about passion. Passion is something that we tend to overemphasize, that we certainly place too much importance on. Passion ebbs and flows. To me, it’s about desire. If you have constant, unwavering desire to be a cook, then you’ll be a great cook. If it’s only about passion, sometimes you’ll be good and sometimes you won’t. You’ve got to come in every day with a strong desire. With passion, if you see the first asparagus of the springtime and you become passionate about it, so much the better, but three weeks later, when you’ve seen that asparagus every day now, passions have subsided. What’s going to make you treat the asparagus the same? It’s the desire.

“Follow your passion” is something you hear really often in tech/design/startup circles, so it’s interesting to see Keller take it to task.

• Thomas Keller