Hello everyone.

I am not sure if these forums include all psychology topics, or if they were intended more for help, so please excuse if I am off topic.

In recent times, I have been trying to find a strong interest, or passion. Something which I enjoy enough to put tremendous effort into, as much as it takes to make progress or accomplish it.

I have quite a few interests, some of them fairly strong. However, I seem to struggle with finding one in which I can both put a lot of persistant effort into, and is at all useful.

Now that I have explained this, I would like to know more about where our strong passionate interests come from. That is..

What causes us as humans to become so interested, so passionate about a certain thing that some have been able to put almost limitless effort into achieving it?

Its difficult for me to consolidate what I mean.. an example: Someone, such as Thomas Edison, puts hundreds upon hundreds of hours into a task with absolutely no compensation and no forseeable outcome. Eventually because of this outpouring of effort, he achieves the lightbulb.

I have learned some basic mechanisms which allow us to put forth the effort. But, I am just curious about, what is behind the fact that someone like Thomas Edison is passionate in inventing, or anything, in the first place?

It would be great to have the ability to create new passions from simple interests.

Again, I hope I'm on topic here. I would love to finally figure this out, succeed with it myself, and help others do the same.