“Do What You Love” Is Privileged Advice 🔥 ...and Indian youth can’t afford it. A 23-year-old in Mumbai dreams of building a music career. A 25-year-old in Kanpur sketches clothing designs between shifts at a call center. A 19-year-old in Patna writes poetry—but hasn’t told his parents because they want him to clear SSC exams. You know what they all have in common? They can't "do what they love." Because passion doesn’t pay their EMI & Bills. In India, we romanticize “follow your dreams” but rarely talk about the cost of dreaming. Ask a middle-class Indian what they love, and you'll likely get silence. Not because they don’t have dreams but because they've spent their whole life chasing survival. Rent. Fees. Family expectations. A job in hand. By the time you're financially stable enough to chase a passion, you're 35, jaded, and told it’s “too late.” Here’s the truth: “Do what you love” is advice designed for people with a financial safety net. For people whose failures don’t mean skipped meals. For people whose Plan B isn’t “back to poverty.” That doesn’t mean passion is impossible. But let’s stop pretending it’s equally accessible to everyone. What’s the fix? Normalize part-time passion projects without judgment. Push for better-paying entry-level jobs so youth can buy time for creativity. Build platforms that help monetize talents early - art, writing, gaming, cooking, anything. Create policies that protect early-stage creators and freelancers, not just big companies. Until then, telling every broke 20-something to “do what they love” isn’t inspiring. It’s insulting.
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