Passion vs. Everything Else

Why Passion Feels Selfish — and Why That Might Be the Point

Illustration by Mihajlo Stojanovic

“Deep passion always requires a little self-obsession.” — Sarah Sarkis

Ten hours of sleep a night. Cryo chambers, massages, infrared saunas. Two-hour daily naps. A personal team of trainers and therapists. A strict diet molded entirely around one goal: staying at peak performance.

LeBron James fell in love with basketball as a kid — and ever since, he’s built his life around it. From the outside, it might look excessive. Maybe even… selfish. All that time, energy, and money could be spent elsewhere — on others, on giving back. And yet, it’s this very level of devotion that makes him the icon he is today.

I’ve felt that tension in my own life. Writing and training jiu-jitsu — my two biggest passions — demand a lot. Though my spending is nowhere near LeBron’s (he’s reported to spend over $1.5 million a year on his body), I’ve still poured plenty into my own passions — education, coaches, competitions, travel, books. But even more than the money, it’s the time.

Time spent writing or training is time not spent doing other things or being with people I care about.

To write at the level I want, I have to turn down late nights so I can get in my early-morning sessions. To train at the level I want, I have to follow a rigid routine — one that doesn’t always fit easily into other people’s lives. I have to eat a certain way. I have to get enough sleep — otherwise my performance slips, physically and mentally.

I won’t lie — I’ve felt guilty more than once in my pursuits, especially when I miss things that matter in order to keep the bubble intact. So I asked my friend and performance psychologist, Dr. Sarah Sarkis, what she thought: Is pursuing a passion inherently selfish? And if it is… is that really a bad thing?

“There’s probably something inherently selfish inside of all deep passion,” she replied thoughtfully. “At some level, probably a level of self-obsession.”

At first, that sounded a little harsh. Most people don’t like to think of ourselves as self-obsessed. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized she was right: passionate people have to have a high level of self-belief, self-focus, and the willingness to block almost everything else out.

Some passions might not demand this much intensity. But the ones that do — sports, writing, mastery-level crafts — require tunnel vision. That can feel selfish. But it’s also necessary.

“Athletes, artists, creatives… they all have to create their own little bubble,” Sarkis said. “They have to block everything else out. They have to protect their time and energy.” That bubble is the point: it’s where the real progress happens. It’s also where flow lives — the deep, immersive state where time dissolves and the work becomes everything. It’s extreme focus. And flow is the real catalyst of all great work.

In fact, that self-obsession might not be a side effect of passion — it might be the very thing that fuels it. Without that intensity, the pursuit tends to fizzle.

I’ve had to build that bubble myself. To protect it fiercely. Sometimes, I feel guilty about it — when I turn down a dinner with friends to train or skip a concert so I can wake up bright and early and write. It does feel selfish. But when I look at other passionate people I admire, I see the same pattern. They protect their time. They say no a lot. They build their lives around what lights them up. That doesn’t make them selfish — it makes them committed.

Which brings us back to the question: if this pursuit of passion is selfish… is that necessarily a bad thing?

My friend and psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman talks about the importance of “healthy selfishness” — which he defines as having a deep respect for your own growth, freedom, joy, and fulfillment. It’s not about ignoring others. It’s about not ignoring yourself.

By that definition, pursuing a passion might be one of the healthiest forms of selfishness there is.

And passion does have ripple effects. Leading by example may be one of the most powerful — and underrated — ways to create change.

LeBron (literally) inspires millions of people around the world — how many young kids have taken up basketball because of him? And it still surprises me when someone tells me that seeing me pursue my passions gave them the push to chase theirs — but it happens more than I ever expected.

Of course, not everyone feels that kind of indirect inspiration is enough. When I spoke to Rayron Gracie, a four-time world champion born into the most famous jiu-jitsu family in the world, he told me that for him, it didn’t quite cut it. After years of competing, he felt the growing pull to give back in a more hands-on way. So he began channeling more of his energy into teaching.

“When you compete, you’re helping yourself,” he told me. “When you teach, you’re automatically helping so many more people.”

Teaching creates a different kind of legacy — one that’s more immediate and direct.

But not everyone needs to follow this path. LeBron could have pivoted to teaching at any point in his career. Instead, he stayed in his bubble and kept following his passion his way — and he is still inspiring people, 21 NBA seasons later. I could have shifted, too. But if I had, I doubt I’d be deep in the process of writing a book or have won a jiu-jitsu world championship as a blue belt.

There’s value in both approaches. One is rooted in direct service. The other, in setting an example by living fully — and unapologetically — with passion.

So yes, at its core, passion can be selfish. But that bubble we build around it? That’s the point. It’s what allows us to go deep, to stretch our potential, to do the kind of work or training that actually means something.

And whether we do that by teaching others or simply by embodying what a fully lit-up life looks like — we’re still contributing. Still helping. Still sparking something real.

Which might make this kind of “selfishness” one of the most generous things we can do.

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