Probing the ominous side of career advice to ",follow your passion,", this data-driven study explains how the passion principle fails us a nd perpetuates inequality by class, gender, a nd race, a nd it suggests how we can reconfigure our relationships to paid wo r k.

",Follow your passion", is a popular mantra fo r career decision-making in the United States. Passion-seeking seems like a promising path fo r avoiding the potential drudgery of a life of paid wo r k, but this ",passion principle",—seductive as it is—does not universally translate. The Trouble with Passion reveals the significant downside of the passion principle: the concept helps culturally legitimize a nd reproduce an exploited, overwo r ked white-collar labo r fo r ce a nd broadly serves to reinfo r ce class, race, a nd gender segregation a nd inequality.

Grounding her investigation in the paradoxical tensions between capitalism's dema nd fo r ideal wo r kers a nd our cultural expectations fo r self-expression, sociologist Erin A. Cech draws on interviews that follow students fr om college into the wo r kfo r ce, surveys of US wo r kers, a nd experimental data to explain why the passion principle is such an attractive, if deceptive, career decision-making mantra, particularly fo r the college educated. Passion-seeking presumes middle-class safety nets a nd springboards a nd penalizes first-generation a nd wo r king-class young adults who seek passion without them. The ripple effects of this mantra undermine the promise of college as a tool fo r social a nd economic mobility. The passion principle also feeds into a culture of overwo r k, encouraging white-collar wo r kers to tolerate precarious employment a nd gladly sacrifice time, money, a nd leisure fo r wo r k they are passionate about. a nd potential employers covet, but won't compensate, passion among job applicants. This book asks, What does it take to center passion in career decisions? Who gets ahead a nd who gets left behind by passion-seeking? The Trouble with Passion calls fo r citizens, educato r s, college administrato r s, a nd industry leaders to reconsider how we think about good jobs a nd, by extension, good lives.