Sure, sometimes we have to engage in things we don’t actually love. I don’t love going to the dentist. But I really enjoy my teeth. So it’s kind of a trade-off. We don't love everything we do all the time.
I think Rumi would agree that we should spend a significant amount of time doing what we love. Your life’s work should be something you love. When you love something, you are more connected to it. You put your best energy into it. And you get more out of it. The essence of what you love is that “beauty” and that essence should be in your daily work. It will naturally spill into what you do, and if you’re lucky other people will benefit from what you are doing.
To do something truly well, you have to enjoy it on some level. Paul Graham wrote an interesting essay on How To Do What You Love.
He poses the question:
How much are you supposed to like what you do? Unless you know that, you don't know when to stop searching. And if, like most people, you underestimate it, you'll tend to stop searching too early. You'll end up doing something chosen for you by your parents, or the desire to make money, or prestige—or sheer inertia.-
I remember when I asked myself this question when I was trying to decide on graduate school. Do most people actually enjoy their jobs? During this point in my life, I was really driven by what I thought was “rational”. What am I good at? What do I like to do or what can I tolerate doing? What will pay me enough to enable me to do things that I love? (notice I never considered work to be something that I could “love”. It was something I had to do in order to support myself so I could do all the things that I love).
This 22 year old rational Amy was having a much harder time deciding what to “do” than any other form of impulsive Amy. Take 6 year old Amy for example: In the first grade, our class was asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. That profession was printed next to our names in the yearbook. It didn’t take me more than 3 seconds to decide on my future profession. I was going to be a triple threat: model/actress/writer. I loved writing plays for my Barbie dolls, I loved acting, and I loved modeling in church fashion shows. So the only thing that made sense to me was to be a model/actress/writer. There. Settled. As I flip through that yearbook, I notice it is full of aspiring astronauts, ballerinas, nurses, and teachers. (Surprisingly not a single venture capitalist or lawyer in the bunch.)
Now I’m not saying that my class of 6 year olds had some kind of deep insight that they somehow regrettably abandoned along the way. (We were a group of kids who used to put lemonade in sandwich bags and tell people that it was pee. Most of us were still afraid of the dark and a few of us liked the taste of our own boogers.) In short, I wouldn’t want 6 year old Amy making any major life decisions for 26 year old Amy. Through the years, we discovered more about our likes, dislikes, abilities, and what we are actually capable of doing. A lot of that simple I-know-it-in-my-gut passion got lost or discarded as childish/idealistic.
I think of my friends, and myself, as we enter the workforce. Maybe we like the money, or the prestige, or the benefits. Maybe we even like the people we work with or we like feeling “productive.” But I wonder how many of us actually love what we do.
How much do you love what you do? Do you work to live? Love to work? Or live to work?
8 comments:
I live to dance.
And if there had been a kid that had chosen venture capitalist at 6 years old, I'm pretty sure he'd be a serial killer now. And loving his work.
I'm pretty sure you're right. The odds would probably be better than the kid who chose "serial killer" at age 6. Damn how we grow/change.
Love your thoughts, as always Amy. Good to hear them again. Back when I was six, I believed (and publically declared to my class) that Barry Manilow was writing about me when she sang, "I write the songs that make the whole world sing.." My kindergarten teacher's aide even fueled the delusion by giving me her Montgomery Ward Silvertone guitar. That was the first time I heard the word destiny, and I was hooked. Fuck all! I guess it could have been worse. My dad wanted to name me Buck. Buck Dicks...now that would have narrowed my future prospects a bit.
Jim! Always good to hear from you.
Music filled your heart. That's a real fine place to start.
I wanted to be a tractor driver initially at 4, I shifted to graphic designer at 8, but i wrote all the way through and that's stuck with me, so ... Ah, and I wanted to be a monk at 11 because I thought they all learned Kung-Fu like David Carridine - the Catholic Priest seemed somewhat confused by my questions about martial arts.
Paul, that made me laugh out loud. Hard.
Except the part about six-year-olds not having some insight, I like it a lot. Kids tend to have themselves figured out until the rest of the world tells them they're wrong because they're kids. I wanted to be a fighter pilot and a marine sniper. I'm glad the world spoke up.
Insight they have. They know themselves. I think it's wisdom, and foresight, that they lack.
Yes. Kids do have insight. A lot of insight. I meant that, as children, we don't really abandon that insight. We change.
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