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Steve Jobs said it most profoundly: "love what you do". This is the opposite of "do what you love". I wish I understood where he learned this. It's very prof

Steve Jobs said it most profoundly: "love what you do". This is the opposite of "do what you love". I wish I understood where he learned this. It's very profound (and true).

Nate75Sanders 1y ago
Possibly from the 1970 Stephen Stills song "Love the One You're With"
4gotunameagain 1y ago
Possibly his well known interest of Buddhism ?
auggierose 1y ago
It is not the opposite. If you do what you love, you love what you do. So its more of, "love what you do" is what to aim for, and "do what you love" is one way to achieve this.
- chrz 1y ago
  Like dont pursue the happiness but be happy pursuing
- lazide 1y ago
  It’s a flip on the framing, and a non trivial one. One is love what you do - which assumes regardless of what you’re doing, love it. The other, do what you love - means choose things that make you love them. They’re completely opposite in what choice they’re telling people to make.
  - auggierose 1y ago
    No, it doesn't tell you "regardless". It tells you, if you do something, you better love it. So if you start doing something, and it turns out you don't love it, you better stop doing it, and do something else instead. As an extreme example, take Nazis managing a concentration camp. If it turns out you are not a bad enough person to love it, you better stop doing it.
    - lazide 1y ago
      That is not at all what ‘love what you do’ means. You’re talking about ‘do what you love’. That means what you are talking about. Both of these sayings can of course be applied to evil as well as good, and be either positive or pathological in impact depending on the situation.
      - auggierose 1y ago
        I think we both interpret the mere words in specific ways. It is just that my interpretation is more logical, and also more general, than yours.
        lazide 1y ago
        It’s basic English grammar. But you do you.
        auggierose 1y ago
        There is syntax (grammar), and there is semantics. You seem to have trouble understanding the full range of semantics that the given syntax allows for.
  - mettamage 1y ago
    My ex-girlfriend [1] did this with us and household tasks, especially cooking. I've gone from hating household tasks to being slightly positive about it. I've gone from hating cooking to loving it. I've tried this with programming. After 15 years, I'm only mildly positive about programming. That has more to do with the culture though, not the activity. I wish there was a business analyst/entrepreneurial programmer hybrid role. Spot opportunities from data, then build out a solution. Or if a solution doesn't need to be built out but it's more of a human/political thing, then do that. I'm currently a data analyst and get some room (informally) to do just that. It's a really fun role, and I'm programming way cooler things than I ever did as a software engineer. [1] Mentioning this detail because I don't think I could've learned this any other way. Well, parents maybe, but they didn't have this attitude.
    - maccard 1y ago
      Those roles exist but they’re really senior staff+ into director level roles (at a smaller org). The problem is that they’re really two roles bundled into one - discovery and development . You need to be aware of business impact, pain points, upcoming tech, your competitors, and you need to be able to execute to just the right level of finish. The bad ones identify solutions that work for huge orgs and try to apply them to everyone and don’t implement them. This is your typical architecture astronaut. Or, they get bogged down in perfection and are massively hands on when they should have stopped long ago. Also your typical micromanaging vp of engineering. But one or two good ones can be utterly enormous force multipliers.
      - mettamage 1y ago
        Maybe I'm suffering from the Dunig Kruger effect but I think I'd be pretty good at it. I guess the only way to show that is by setting up my own company. I'm just afraid of the risk. Finding product market fit seems extremely hard. Companies that gave me the chance a bit, it seems that I always fulfilled those expectations.
- mettamage 1y ago
  If you do what you love, then you love what you do. If you love what you do, you didn't necessarily get there by doing what you love. Reminds me of: a duck is a bird but a bird isn't necessarily a duck. I agree it's not the opposite.
  - 9rx 1y ago
    > If you do what you love, then you love what you do. While it is possible to both do what you love and love what you do, often if you do what you love you are apt to find out that you don't actually love doing it. Hence the common refrain that cautions against turning your love into a job.
    - mettamage 1y ago
      That could also be the overjustification effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect
- detourdog 1y ago
  I think the subtle difference is "Do what you love" is passive one is not actively doing anything. They have ideal in their head that may not match reality. "Love what you do" in my eyes is being present and actively loving the moment while doing the work.
- muzani 1y ago
  A very common example is art. Most people love to draw things like characters or landscapes. But the real world application of art is usually ads, logos, and posters. There's significant skill overlap, but little passion overlap.
a_c 1y ago
Smile more, you will be happier. On how long to know if a job is right, it depends how much you know what you are looking for.
paulryanrogers 1y ago
One of many platitudes that kept me in working conditions and religion which were detrimental to my career and mental health. Maybe it's useful to some who are in objectively good circumstances which they haven't learned to appreciate. I'd still advocate for getting other perspectives from trustworthy folks about ones specific situation. And not taking advice from billionaires who think their fruity diet will cure their cancer.
- lurking_swe 1y ago
  to play devils advocate, you can try to “love what you do” while continuing to better your circumstances. No? The quote doesn’t suggest “the job/career you have now is perfect for you, ignore all red flags”.
  - paulryanrogers 1y ago
    The advice is reductive and wide open for interpretation. Also rich coming from a lucky sociopath who cheated even his closest coworker for (relative) pennies.
    - lurking_swe 1y ago
      i try not to judge people holistically when listening to them give advice in a very narrow area, like work in this case. We all have faults, some more than others obviously. Example: a rapist could be an EXCELLENT plumber as his occupation. One has nothing to do with the other. Pretending like they have no useful plumbing advice to give just makes one look silly. Steve jobs was a shit human being. But i won’t sit here and pretend he wasn’t a visionary product person, or a person that thought deeply about work, our relation with technology, etc. For what it’s worth I agree it’s reductive. Most 1-2 sentence life advice is…so not too surprising. :)
      - throwaway2037 1y ago
        > give advice in a very narrow area, like work in this case For most working folks, work is about one half of their waking hours. Nothing about that is "narrow". Do your consider advice about sleep to be similarly narrow? It uses about the same time as work.
usmur 1y ago
A similar quote from Nietzsche has really struck to me: Happiness is not doing everything you want, but wanting everything you do.

Steve Jobs said it most profoundly: "love what you do". This is the opposite of "do what you love". I wish I understood where he learned this. It's very profound (and true).

Nate75Sanders 1y ago

Possibly from the 1970 Stephen Stills song "Love the One You're With"

4gotunameagain 1y ago

Possibly his well known interest of Buddhism ?

auggierose 1y ago

It is not the opposite. If you do what you love, you love what you do. So its more of, "love what you do" is what to aim for, and "do what you love" is one way to achieve this.

chrz 1y ago
Like dont pursue the happiness but be happy pursuing
lazide 1y ago
It’s a flip on the framing, and a non trivial one. One is love what you do - which assumes regardless of what you’re doing, love it. The other, do what you love - means choose things that make you love them. They’re completely opposite in what choice they’re telling people to make.
- auggierose 1y ago
  No, it doesn't tell you "regardless". It tells you, if you do something, you better love it. So if you start doing something, and it turns out you don't love it, you better stop doing it, and do something else instead. As an extreme example, take Nazis managing a concentration camp. If it turns out you are not a bad enough person to love it, you better stop doing it.
  - lazide 1y ago
    That is not at all what ‘love what you do’ means. You’re talking about ‘do what you love’. That means what you are talking about. Both of these sayings can of course be applied to evil as well as good, and be either positive or pathological in impact depending on the situation.
    - auggierose 1y ago
      I think we both interpret the mere words in specific ways. It is just that my interpretation is more logical, and also more general, than yours.
      - lazide 1y ago
        It’s basic English grammar. But you do you.
        auggierose 1y ago
        There is syntax (grammar), and there is semantics. You seem to have trouble understanding the full range of semantics that the given syntax allows for.
- mettamage 1y ago
  My ex-girlfriend [1] did this with us and household tasks, especially cooking. I've gone from hating household tasks to being slightly positive about it. I've gone from hating cooking to loving it. I've tried this with programming. After 15 years, I'm only mildly positive about programming. That has more to do with the culture though, not the activity. I wish there was a business analyst/entrepreneurial programmer hybrid role. Spot opportunities from data, then build out a solution. Or if a solution doesn't need to be built out but it's more of a human/political thing, then do that. I'm currently a data analyst and get some room (informally) to do just that. It's a really fun role, and I'm programming way cooler things than I ever did as a software engineer. [1] Mentioning this detail because I don't think I could've learned this any other way. Well, parents maybe, but they didn't have this attitude.
  - maccard 1y ago
    Those roles exist but they’re really senior staff+ into director level roles (at a smaller org). The problem is that they’re really two roles bundled into one - discovery and development . You need to be aware of business impact, pain points, upcoming tech, your competitors, and you need to be able to execute to just the right level of finish. The bad ones identify solutions that work for huge orgs and try to apply them to everyone and don’t implement them. This is your typical architecture astronaut. Or, they get bogged down in perfection and are massively hands on when they should have stopped long ago. Also your typical micromanaging vp of engineering. But one or two good ones can be utterly enormous force multipliers.
    - mettamage 1y ago
      Maybe I'm suffering from the Dunig Kruger effect but I think I'd be pretty good at it. I guess the only way to show that is by setting up my own company. I'm just afraid of the risk. Finding product market fit seems extremely hard. Companies that gave me the chance a bit, it seems that I always fulfilled those expectations.
mettamage 1y ago
If you do what you love, then you love what you do. If you love what you do, you didn't necessarily get there by doing what you love. Reminds me of: a duck is a bird but a bird isn't necessarily a duck. I agree it's not the opposite.
- 9rx 1y ago
  > If you do what you love, then you love what you do. While it is possible to both do what you love and love what you do, often if you do what you love you are apt to find out that you don't actually love doing it. Hence the common refrain that cautions against turning your love into a job.
  - mettamage 1y ago
    That could also be the overjustification effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect
detourdog 1y ago
I think the subtle difference is "Do what you love" is passive one is not actively doing anything. They have ideal in their head that may not match reality. "Love what you do" in my eyes is being present and actively loving the moment while doing the work.
muzani 1y ago
A very common example is art. Most people love to draw things like characters or landscapes. But the real world application of art is usually ads, logos, and posters. There's significant skill overlap, but little passion overlap.

a_c 1y ago

Smile more, you will be happier. On how long to know if a job is right, it depends how much you know what you are looking for.

paulryanrogers 1y ago

One of many platitudes that kept me in working conditions and religion which were detrimental to my career and mental health. Maybe it's useful to some who are in objectively good circumstances which they haven't learned to appreciate. I'd still advocate for getting other perspectives from trustworthy folks about ones specific situation. And not taking advice from billionaires who think their fruity diet will cure their cancer.

lurking_swe 1y ago
to play devils advocate, you can try to “love what you do” while continuing to better your circumstances. No? The quote doesn’t suggest “the job/career you have now is perfect for you, ignore all red flags”.
- paulryanrogers 1y ago
  The advice is reductive and wide open for interpretation. Also rich coming from a lucky sociopath who cheated even his closest coworker for (relative) pennies.
  - lurking_swe 1y ago
    i try not to judge people holistically when listening to them give advice in a very narrow area, like work in this case. We all have faults, some more than others obviously. Example: a rapist could be an EXCELLENT plumber as his occupation. One has nothing to do with the other. Pretending like they have no useful plumbing advice to give just makes one look silly. Steve jobs was a shit human being. But i won’t sit here and pretend he wasn’t a visionary product person, or a person that thought deeply about work, our relation with technology, etc. For what it’s worth I agree it’s reductive. Most 1-2 sentence life advice is…so not too surprising. :)
    - throwaway2037 1y ago
      > give advice in a very narrow area, like work in this case For most working folks, work is about one half of their waking hours. Nothing about that is "narrow". Do your consider advice about sleep to be similarly narrow? It uses about the same time as work.

usmur 1y ago

A similar quote from Nietzsche has really struck to me: Happiness is not doing everything you want, but wanting everything you do.