Do you love what you do?
How many people, out of everyone who has ever lived on Earth, find work in their lifetime that they truly love doing? Almost none, I suspect. This topic is often on my mind; at least once a year I pop up from the rabbit hole and ask, “Do I love this job? How long should I keep doing it? What needs to change? What else could I be doing instead?” If you’re obssessed with the same meme, check out Paul Graham’s essay, How to Do What You Love.
Here’s a quote:
To do something well you have to like it. That idea is not exactly novel. We’ve got it down to four words: “Do what you love.” But it’s not enough just to tell people that. Doing what you love is complicated.
…
The test of whether people love what they do is whether they’d do it even if they weren’t paid for it– even if they had to work at another job to make a living. How many corporate lawyers would do their current work if they had to do it for free, in their spare time, and take day jobs as waiters to support themselves?
And now, having shared three distractions with you this morning alone, I’m going to take Paul’s advice and get back to producing original material of my own, rather than just blathering on about work other people love doing. :-)
Email and RSS updates
Yvonne said,
April 27, 2006 @ 10:11 pm
I have a shirt with a tag on it that says: “Do what you like. Like what you do.”
So simple…and so true. When I didn’t know what to major in at Wellesley a dean told me to just look at classes and pick the most interesting ones and I’d find my way…so I did. I ended up majoring in religion though I’m not a religious person. I find the whole concept of religion very interesting. I could write a dissertation on the subject…oh wait, I think I have already. :-)
There’s something that drove me to the whole corporate thing after school though…it was fear and that ridiculously large number hanging over my head which was my education debt. So rather than taking the radical path and doing something I loved but with little to no job security I ended up going the safe way. But it all works out in the end. I did love my job at Microsoft and got to do some pretty neat stuff on some pretty nifty software, but at the end of the day it wasn’t enough. When I got stressed out I would bake…not just a little, but massive amounts of things. And one day I thought it would be fantastic if someone would just pay me to do that!
So now I’m in pastry school and have a mentor who is fantabulous and though I wake up at 5 a.m. I’m excited to be doing something I love! Other than the whole $$$ thing what was preventing me from starting to do this was the fear that I was letting people down, but I wasn’t. I’m happier, my family is happier, hubby is happier (especially when I bring home pain au chocolat), and I think my friends are happier cause they don’t hear me kvetching about wanting to do something else. :-)
to quote the other thing on that shirt… Life is good.
-Yvonne
Varunn said,
June 12, 2006 @ 6:15 pm
too true. we require to do what we like and enjoy it. the 2 are inseperable.
I have the same T , reminds me to always foloow through. %-)