I was working for a top media company with world-class brands, intelligent co-workers, a decent salary and great benefits. When I started out three years ago, that’s all I thought I wanted. But then somewhere along the way I found myself changing and I didn’t like what I saw. So, I left my job.

Don’t get me wrong – I didn’t quit my job because I hated it. I quit because I didn’t love it.

Now I know that to a lot of people this might seem crazy. We’re on the fringe of a recession when the unemployment rate for young people is the highest that it’s been since World War II. But I couldn’t ignore what I knew to be true any longer.

The change I experienced happens for many of us. We graduate from school with the best intentions of changing the world: writing a best-selling book, finding the cure for cancer, eradicating poverty, founding the next big tech company.

And then somehow, years later, we find ourselves stuck. Stuck in a cube with a rigidly structured 9-to-5 day, creating stuff we aren’t that passionate about and wasting far too much time on things that don’t really change anything. We stop growing. We stop caring. We stop dreaming.

How does this happen?

It starts in the moment we forget that pursuing what we are fiercely passionate about is the only path to true and lasting happiness. In my case, I began to convince myself that salary and corporate prestige could somehow make up for a passionless career.

Many of us do this, not because we don’t know better, but because it is scary to choose passion over security.

Choosing to follow your passion doesn’t often come with a high base salary, a comprehensive healthcare plan or a fancy wardrobe.

Sometimes, pursuing your passion means eating ramen noodles five days a week and taking on another part-time job to pay the bills for a while. Sometimes it means making a choice that everyone else thinks is completely crazy.

Choosing to pursue what you’re passionate about is usually not the easy route. In fact, it’s often the downright scary route. But if you want to live a genuinely happy and fulfilling life, it is the only route. Having taken a few passionless routes myself, I’ve road tested the crap out of this theory and come to realize just how true it is. The scary choice became the only choice.

I traded in a job that I liked (and all the security that came along with it) for a start-up job that I really love – one that excites me and fills me with passion every single day. Am I scared? Sure. And that’s a great thing. Because it’s the scary choices we make in life that wind up being the most worthwhile.