I love this post. Definitely true. I’ve done a video blog about profiting from your passions and this post fits my thought process on it to a T. I don’t like the word addicted either, but I do see how people can call things we do with the web an addiction. If it’s causing rifts in your relationships with significant others, friends & family, or if it’s causing a bit more health problems (ie: severe back pain, dehydration from not drinking anything, ect) then yeah, I’d see how it’s an addiction.

Me, I’m just severely passionate

I deffintly agree with you on this, some people have never even taken the word passion into consideration, but when you love something you just want to surround yourself with it, deffintly in the design world because you can just open your mind and be creative beyond the “thought”.

Nice post man… hope this really builds some discussion for this topic. i can be very easy to let our passions become addictions, if we don’t have the right balance. That is why I think it is important to have a community of people you can trust that will tell you it is time to step away for a bit and get refreshed.

Nice Read!

~ Aaron I

Awesome topic man. Our line of work can become an addiction once we start neglecting our friends and family when all we do is work. Our line of work is a very passionate one yes, but I think that’s the main reason why we don’t see it sometimes. We need to remember not only do we need to work hard, but we need to play hard as well. What I like to do is work my butt off mon - fri with little breaks, and when the weekend comes all I do is hang with friends and the wifey.

great discussion Josh, keep it up buddy!

Right on Josh. Great post man. I agree with Aaron that we benefit from a great community that will help us step back and balance our lives. I know that we can help each other from our own experiences by sharing what we’ve learned through tough/stressful situations. And while experience is the best teacher, we can use what we know to help better equip those younger/less experienced than us.

It’s a fine line we walk in our area of work where we have to balance the time we spend working and the time we spend living. It also helps to have an awesome spouse that is supportive and gracious enough to forgive us when we work too much. I know I don’t always get the whole balancing work and life down right. Especially when I start work on an exciting new project.

But there is something to be said about stepping away from our computers, desks, or wherever you work and getting some fresh air. This past weekend was the perfect example for me. I had anticipated doing a lot more work while I was out there, but getting to chill with Garth and Aaron and you guys at the Collekt meetup was much more worthwhile. It was really refreshing to me since last week was so hectic.

Thanks for the great post man.

I think someone got under your skin with the word “addiction” Josh. I actually think it might be ok to be addicted to design, isn’t it better than being addicted to anything else? I wouldn’t want to addicted to accounting or some other profession that’s sounds really uncreative

The definition of addiction does not refer to anything negative, so I think it’s all about how you look at it. If I’m addicted than I think I feed my addiction about every second. I mean design is everywhere you look, and I mean everywhere. It’s one thing to be addicted to designing and sitting at your desk for hours neglecting everything, and it’s another to just be addicted to design (in a good way) were you notice and appreciate design where others might not.

Maybe when its leading to positive results I.E well balance of life and great work it can be considered a passion but when it starts leading to workaholic trends and negative results it can be called an addiction.