5 ms·

Do what you love mirage

66 points by ct 17y ago

drc1912 17y ago
Basic premise: Unless you win the lottery, doing what you love isn't an option. In lieu of that, force yourself to work as hard as possible so that you can be successful at what you must do (and learn to love the success).
manvsmachine 17y ago
I don't see how the two philosophies are necessarily contrary. Nobody is saying that doing what you love must comprise one's "day job". I think the idea behind the saying is that, generally speaking, one must love (or at least like) what they do in order to maintain the drive needed to become world class. There are already enough obstacles out there that one must overcome to become the best at what they do. Why arbitrarily add another by picking something you don't even like?
- roc 17y ago
  I don't think many people really are doing jobs they don't like. When you genuinely don't like the work, you quit. Even people who are making a primarily economic decision simply do not stay in jobs they hate. I've yet to hear someone say they hate their job and then discover that they actually dislike the work itself. Rather, what they hate are corporate pressures, co-workers and other external forces that impede their ability to do their job. When people feel they have control over those factors, they minimize them. When they don't, it creates the stress that leads to 'I hate my job'.
  - yosho 17y ago
    exactly, its' not necessarily the work, it's everything that surrounds the work that makes doing quality work impossible.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
pjhyett 17y ago
Do what you love. There, a financially insecure person just told you to do that. If you have to pay the bills then yes, do what it takes, but you should always be striving to work on something that makes you happy.
- ggruschow 17y ago
  I love to eat with a roof over my head, and I love to sleep in a warm bed.
  - mivok 17y ago
    So... a food critic or mattress tester?
  - smokinn 17y ago
    The vast majority of jobs will give you food a roof and a bed. People start doing the jobs they don't want because they want a large house, two model-of-the-year cars (leased of course), the 40+ inch HD tv, etc etc etc. Doing what you love is easy to say but most people choose to forgo doing what they love to own (or at least use temporarily) what they want.
    - jhancock 17y ago
      This perspective may be correct for well educated upper middle class and above. But thats a small part of the U.S. and an even smaller part of the world. The vast majority do not have jobs they love and have little choice in the matter and also do not have a large house, cars, etc.
- j_baker 17y ago
  +1 If I have to choose between being broke and happy or being rich and unhappy, I'd choose the former every time.
jsankey 17y ago
It's an interesting idea but I think the major problem is many people are in jobs too far from what they are really interested in or enjoy. They've made safe choices based on the fact that they need money to live. Although pouring all their efforts into whatever they are already doing may be better than tuning out completely, I tend to wonder why they don't just put that effort into finding what they really want to do and making it a reality. Once you're committed to the effort it's not as unrealistic as the author suggests.
xenonite 17y ago
and what it is that I love most? in my experience: I like the work I can do well. then it is to find out what one does well... I can tell my abilities about that work I have been with long enough to withstand the initial bootstrap. Long enough to find out how the routine would look like. Always dependent on workplace, co-workers, topics, software/hardware, money, future opportunities...
- rw140 17y ago
  I agree with the sentiment. There are many ways of 'doing what you love'. You can love the tools and languages you get to play with, you can love doing a good job, you can love being part of a really cool project, you can love being challenged and forced to learn and improve your skills, you can love working with really intelligent people. The list goes on...
gizmo 17y ago
Life is about compromise. When you have a family to support you often can't afford to dabble with a startup or to quit your job at a whim. "Do what you love" isn't meant to encourage people in this situation to recklessly drop everything to search for perfect job satisfaction. The "do what you love" mantra to me means making conscious decisions that improve the likelihood that you get to do what you love for a living, instead of optimizing for other metrics such as money, or prestige. Or the worst option of all: just winging it. The mind boggling thing is that many people make no conscious decisions about their life at all if they can avoid it. In the spirit of the underpants meme: 1. Graduate high school 2. Graduate bachelor & master 3. ??? 4. Happiness / Fulfillment Not only do people often go through both (1) and (2) without really thinking about it (e.g. study Law because "laywers are rich" or French Lit because "I like French books"), there often is no plan for (3). None at all. So people end up doing a PhD as a form of life procrastination, or take a job working with technology that will suck the life out of them (or will seriously limit future job prospects) for marginally better pay. So when you see "do what you love", read "plan your life such that you get to do what you love". And I don't think this can be repeated enough.
- lovskogen 17y ago
  I agree wholeheartedly, so many friends of mine are at step 2. Again, some of my friends with jobs doing what they 'love', developing or design – isn't actually enjoying every bit of it, but somehow seem satisfied with getting payed for doing something they know. I think you should strive for getting payed to do the things you love, not giving up half way.
- lkrubner 17y ago
  The #2 option is a little absurd. Last time I looked up the numbers (for an essay I wrote in 2003) only 3% of Americans had Masters degrees. So you are talking about a very small elite. Roughly 50% of Americans never go to college.
RyanMcGreal 17y ago
It's also possible to "do what you can tolerate" as a day job and "do what you love" as a fulfilling hobby.
rapind 17y ago
Who actually knows what they love to do? I think there's a rampant myth that there are all sorts of people who know what they love to do but aren't doing it... Figure out what you love to do and chances are you'll naturally end up doing it. IMO figuring out what you love to do takes a lot of work, because you generally don't know if you love it until you've made a significant investment, and that investment itself potentially makes you love it.
- allenp 17y ago
  I think you're right that as you learn about something, you feel invested and find more interest in it. I also think that as you learn about one thing you may find other areas or topics that you can learn about - so "what you love" may actually be a moving target.
  - rapind 17y ago
    Pretty much. I think it's a genetic thing with our species to always want more. Grass is greener etc.
    - misterbwong 17y ago
      I wish this lesson was pounded into my brain at an earlier age. I spent too much of my younger years waiting for that AHA! moment where I'd realize my calling in life. It just doesn't work that way for a good chunk of civilization. Finding out what you love takes work because we don't know ourselves as well as we think we do...
pwnstigator 17y ago
Any time we do quality work we are deeply satisfied with it. Whether it is writing code, fixing a car or cooking, when done well it makes us happy. Good, quality work is always unmistakable. Most people don't even get to do that. They're expected to "get it done" within deadlines, constraints, and business decisions that make mediocre or even shitty work the best that's possible. People would be much happier and more productive if they had the resources, support, and (by far, most importantly) creative freedom necessary to do excellent work, but the reality of the business world is that most people don't.
10ren 17y ago
Assessing the truth of a claim by who says it is an unreliable guide, to tell what pjhyett has shown. Note: it's not "do what you like", but "do what you love". It's not about pleasure, but meaning - to do what you believe is worthwhile and meaningful. It's a quest, a sacrifice. But also, in line with the article, there's the idea of "love is a verb", meaning that love is not a feeling, but it is what you actually do. To sacrifice for something, to do the actions of caring for something, comes first, and the feeling of love follows. Personally, I think you need a bit of both: a feeling of love and the actions of love.

66 points by ct 17y ago

drc1912 17y ago

Basic premise: Unless you win the lottery, doing what you love isn't an option. In lieu of that, force yourself to work as hard as possible so that you can be successful at what you must do (and learn to love the success).

manvsmachine 17y ago

I don't see how the two philosophies are necessarily contrary. Nobody is saying that doing what you love must comprise one's "day job". I think the idea behind the saying is that, generally speaking, one must love (or at least like) what they do in order to maintain the drive needed to become world class. There are already enough obstacles out there that one must overcome to become the best at what they do. Why arbitrarily add another by picking something you don't even like?

roc 17y ago
I don't think many people really are doing jobs they don't like. When you genuinely don't like the work, you quit. Even people who are making a primarily economic decision simply do not stay in jobs they hate. I've yet to hear someone say they hate their job and then discover that they actually dislike the work itself. Rather, what they hate are corporate pressures, co-workers and other external forces that impede their ability to do their job. When people feel they have control over those factors, they minimize them. When they don't, it creates the stress that leads to 'I hate my job'.
- yosho 17y ago
  exactly, its' not necessarily the work, it's everything that surrounds the work that makes doing quality work impossible.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

pjhyett 17y ago

Do what you love. There, a financially insecure person just told you to do that. If you have to pay the bills then yes, do what it takes, but you should always be striving to work on something that makes you happy.

ggruschow 17y ago
I love to eat with a roof over my head, and I love to sleep in a warm bed.
- mivok 17y ago
  So... a food critic or mattress tester?
- smokinn 17y ago
  The vast majority of jobs will give you food a roof and a bed. People start doing the jobs they don't want because they want a large house, two model-of-the-year cars (leased of course), the 40+ inch HD tv, etc etc etc. Doing what you love is easy to say but most people choose to forgo doing what they love to own (or at least use temporarily) what they want.
  - jhancock 17y ago
    This perspective may be correct for well educated upper middle class and above. But thats a small part of the U.S. and an even smaller part of the world. The vast majority do not have jobs they love and have little choice in the matter and also do not have a large house, cars, etc.
j_baker 17y ago
+1 If I have to choose between being broke and happy or being rich and unhappy, I'd choose the former every time.

jsankey 17y ago

It's an interesting idea but I think the major problem is many people are in jobs too far from what they are really interested in or enjoy. They've made safe choices based on the fact that they need money to live. Although pouring all their efforts into whatever they are already doing may be better than tuning out completely, I tend to wonder why they don't just put that effort into finding what they really want to do and making it a reality. Once you're committed to the effort it's not as unrealistic as the author suggests.

xenonite 17y ago

and what it is that I love most? in my experience: I like the work I can do well. then it is to find out what one does well... I can tell my abilities about that work I have been with long enough to withstand the initial bootstrap. Long enough to find out how the routine would look like. Always dependent on workplace, co-workers, topics, software/hardware, money, future opportunities...

rw140 17y ago
I agree with the sentiment. There are many ways of 'doing what you love'. You can love the tools and languages you get to play with, you can love doing a good job, you can love being part of a really cool project, you can love being challenged and forced to learn and improve your skills, you can love working with really intelligent people. The list goes on...

gizmo 17y ago

Life is about compromise. When you have a family to support you often can't afford to dabble with a startup or to quit your job at a whim. "Do what you love" isn't meant to encourage people in this situation to recklessly drop everything to search for perfect job satisfaction. The "do what you love" mantra to me means making conscious decisions that improve the likelihood that you get to do what you love for a living, instead of optimizing for other metrics such as money, or prestige. Or the worst option of all: just winging it. The mind boggling thing is that many people make no conscious decisions about their life at all if they can avoid it. In the spirit of the underpants meme: 1. Graduate high school 2. Graduate bachelor & master 3. ??? 4. Happiness / Fulfillment Not only do people often go through both (1) and (2) without really thinking about it (e.g. study Law because "laywers are rich" or French Lit because "I like French books"), there often is no plan for (3). None at all. So people end up doing a PhD as a form of life procrastination, or take a job working with technology that will suck the life out of them (or will seriously limit future job prospects) for marginally better pay. So when you see "do what you love", read "plan your life such that you get to do what you love". And I don't think this can be repeated enough.

lovskogen 17y ago
I agree wholeheartedly, so many friends of mine are at step 2. Again, some of my friends with jobs doing what they 'love', developing or design – isn't actually enjoying every bit of it, but somehow seem satisfied with getting payed for doing something they know. I think you should strive for getting payed to do the things you love, not giving up half way.
lkrubner 17y ago
The #2 option is a little absurd. Last time I looked up the numbers (for an essay I wrote in 2003) only 3% of Americans had Masters degrees. So you are talking about a very small elite. Roughly 50% of Americans never go to college.

RyanMcGreal 17y ago

It's also possible to "do what you can tolerate" as a day job and "do what you love" as a fulfilling hobby.

rapind 17y ago

Who actually knows what they love to do? I think there's a rampant myth that there are all sorts of people who know what they love to do but aren't doing it... Figure out what you love to do and chances are you'll naturally end up doing it. IMO figuring out what you love to do takes a lot of work, because you generally don't know if you love it until you've made a significant investment, and that investment itself potentially makes you love it.

allenp 17y ago
I think you're right that as you learn about something, you feel invested and find more interest in it. I also think that as you learn about one thing you may find other areas or topics that you can learn about - so "what you love" may actually be a moving target.
- rapind 17y ago
  Pretty much. I think it's a genetic thing with our species to always want more. Grass is greener etc.
  - misterbwong 17y ago
    I wish this lesson was pounded into my brain at an earlier age. I spent too much of my younger years waiting for that AHA! moment where I'd realize my calling in life. It just doesn't work that way for a good chunk of civilization. Finding out what you love takes work because we don't know ourselves as well as we think we do...

pwnstigator 17y ago

Any time we do quality work we are deeply satisfied with it. Whether it is writing code, fixing a car or cooking, when done well it makes us happy. Good, quality work is always unmistakable. Most people don't even get to do that. They're expected to "get it done" within deadlines, constraints, and business decisions that make mediocre or even shitty work the best that's possible. People would be much happier and more productive if they had the resources, support, and (by far, most importantly) creative freedom necessary to do excellent work, but the reality of the business world is that most people don't.

10ren 17y ago

Assessing the truth of a claim by who says it is an unreliable guide, to tell what pjhyett has shown. Note: it's not "do what you like", but "do what you love". It's not about pleasure, but meaning - to do what you believe is worthwhile and meaningful. It's a quest, a sacrifice. But also, in line with the article, there's the idea of "love is a verb", meaning that love is not a feeling, but it is what you actually do. To sacrifice for something, to do the actions of caring for something, comes first, and the feeling of love follows. Personally, I think you need a bit of both: a feeling of love and the actions of love.