
Do What You Love or You Will Destroy Yourself - acconrad
http://adamconrad.posterous.com/do-what-you-love-or-it-will-destroy-you-or-ho#
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mkn
Drivel. All of it.

Right off the bat, try these on for size: Do What You Can Tolerate, And You'll
Get By; Do Something You Hate If You Have To, Otherwise You'll Starve; Do
Something You're Indifferent To But Pays The Bills, Or You Won't Be Able To
Afford Anything; or, Do Whatever Comes Along And Have Fun In Your Free Time.
Those are your writing assignments. 1000 words or less. Due tomorrow.

A healthy dose of realism would help the author along, as would taking the
attention-whoring down a notch or two.

 _I spun into a soulless depression--working by day, working by night_

And now the author is in his manic phase, which will also pass. Seriously, if
you're in "soulless depression," don't change careers, get mental help.

Cognitive behavior therapists would call what the author is doing
"awfulizing." He's making the consequences of a course of action out to be far
worse than they really are, and working himself up over it. "Oh, it would be
absolutely awful if I had to do X for a living!" Well, no. You could develop
coping skills instead of insisting that everything has to be perfect in order
for your life not to be awful.

Oh, well. It takes all kinds, I guess.

~~~
gruseom
It isn't drivel. He's saying that if you ignore what your heart and soul
crave, you will suffer increasingly until you wake up and make changes. That's
a practical truth, one worth repeating because most of us do so assiduous a
job of forgetting it.

Realism? He identified a false assumption and corrected it. How much more
realistic can you get?

 _don't change careers, get mental help_

What's mental help? Sounds like something we could all use.

Work is what we spend most of our waking hours doing, so work that sucks is
life that sucks. That's not "awfulizing" - those consequences really are bad.
There may be good reason to accept them for a while, but that path is fraught
with risk, because (we've all seen examples of this) "a while" can so easily
turn into decades, into a lifetime. When someone breaks out of that trance, we
should all applaud.

------
WalterSear
For most people, this is absolutely the most self-destructive advice possible,
since they have not learnt how to foster a love for things that meet either
their needs or wants - which is something that you fortunately learnt early
on, the easy way, at 15.

Give someone without a viable skill set this advice, and watch them go to art
school/form a talentless band/become an unemploued actor/rapper.

But yeah, fuck soul sucking jobs. I'm so bad at them, and they are so bad for
me, I've sworn off them too.

"Do you have the ability to throw yourself against the currents of our culture
and recognize that you are not the center of your life? The tasks and
summonses are the center. Your happiness and your worth are a byproduct of how
you engage them. Most of us are egotistical and most of us are self-concerned
most of the time, but it’s nonetheless true that life comes to a point only
when the self dissolves into some larger task and summons. The purpose in life
is not to find yourself. It’s to lose yourself."

[http://adamconrad.posterous.com/do-what-you-love-or-it-
will-...](http://adamconrad.posterous.com/do-what-you-love-or-it-will-destroy-
you-or-ho#)

~~~
DavidSJ
_For most people, this is absolutely the most self-destructive advice
possible, since they have not learnt how to foster a love for things that meet
either their needs or wants - which is something that you fortunately learnt
early on, the easy way, at 15._

This is one reason people should be allowed to spend their childhoods doing
what they love rather than following someone else's curriculum for them. By
the time they have to fend for themselves, they'll have a chance at having
found something they love _and_ which pays the bills.

~~~
Confusion
This assumes that, when left to their own devices, kids will stumble upon
things they love. This is false, because kids mostly don't know where to look,
don't have any incentive to look and have the attention span of a goldfish.

You are thinking what it would have been like for you and the error you are
making is forgetting that most kids are not like you were. Most kids don't end
up as adults on Hacker News. When left alone, without being introduced to a
wide variety of subjects, most kids would play games on the street with their
friends, never take up a book and certainly never attempt to organize anything
bigger than the next match against the kids of the next neighbourhood.

------
wazoox
Sometimes, to get what you love you need to sacrifice something else that you
love, too. To be able to stay with my sweetheart (I'm still with), 15 years
ago I had to quit my activity as a musician, arranger and artist to get a job
bringing enough money to live with. Your job is only one part of your life; if
your life is balanced enough, nothing more than 25 or 30% of it.

~~~
cglee
This is right on. Many recent grads have such a strong identity associated
with their job that of course it's soul sucking if you don’t like it. But if
your life is actually your family, then working a mediocre job to pay the
bills and send your kids to baseball practice and live in a safe suburb isn't
so bad.

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sliverstorm
Two problems:

1) The more I love what I'm doing, the more I let it consume my life. My job
cannot be my life.

2) The more I love something, the easier it is to burn out in 2-4 years.

If you find yourself doing something you really love, pace yourself and don't
let it consume your life, and your love will live long.

------
acconrad
This is the story of how I tried to start my own start up on nights and
weekends and couldn't handle the balance. I may have lost the love of my life,
and it's forced me to examine what I really want to do with my life, and how
everyone needs to do what they love. I'm submitting this in the hopes that
others don't go through the same mistakes I did, and perhaps others could
share how they've been able to find balance or the trials and tribulations
you've been through to find happiness in life.

~~~
chadgeidel
Don't misunderstand me - I appreciate what you are saying here, and we could
all take your advice to heart, but sometimes "doing what you love" simply
isn't possible.

People in the US and other technology-oriented areas of the world (I'll admit
I'm completely ignorant) are amazingly lucky to enjoy a wide range of career
choices. We get to _choose a career_. Certainly we can choose things that are
more pleasant than others.

But to say everyone has the option to do "what they love" is not accurate. Do
something you don't hate sure. Do something you enjoy maybe. Sometimes we
can't do what we love.

I love driving my car really really fast (and do when I have a chance to) but
there's no way I could make a career out of it. I also happen to love
technology (not my job so much) so I'm lucky to work in a field that I enjoy.

I have been thinking lately though that I should try to go somewhere else
where I will be "happier" - somewhere that will challenge me. In this aspect,
I'm absolutely going to follow your advice.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I'm going to disagree with this assertion: "sometimes 'doing what you love'
simply isn't possible."

The twist is that it may be true that you cannot survive doing some particular
thing you love doing, it is has been my experience that you can find something
you love to do that does in fact pay for your expenses.

The example "I love driving my car really really fast (and do when I have a
chance to) but there's no way I could make a career out of it." is an
interesting one, and to give you a flavor of how I think about these things.

Have you explored what it is about driving your car really really fast that
triggers your happiness/reward center? Is it the inherent risk of losing
control? Is it the rapid fire decision making? Is it the minimization of time
between destinations? Is it some sense of freedom about being able to go
anywhere ?

If you can get enough introspection into finding out what it is that you love
about driving your car fast, it can lead you additional activities that you
will also love.

My conjecture (and its just that) is that the base class of things that
trigger our reward centers rapid enough or deeply enough cause us to 'love'
doing them, is relatively finite with respect to the set 'all possible things
you could do.'

Its worth spending some time thinking about because everyday you spend doing
something that you don't love doing, is a day you will never get back.

~~~
sliverstorm
Driving (well, racing) is a member of a set of things very few people get to
do successfully as a career. The things that make racing exciting are
typically the speed, the thrill, the danger, and how quickly everything
happens.

In short, the only way to get these things in a job is in a professional
sport, or maybe in the armed forces. Professional sporting is always an elite
group, and fighter pilot's seats, the SEALS, and the Delta Force are similarly
eclectic.

~~~
keeptrying
I'd like to add Kiteboarding or surfing big waves to the list of things that
would give you the feeling that you describe.

The fastest thing on water is a Kiteboard. In high winds it has everything you
described above - but it is plenty dangerous too so be careful. It's something
I intensely love to do.

~~~
sliverstorm
But you can get paid to do it?

~~~
ChuckMcM
I'm absolutely certain you can get paid to teach it, you could also probably
get paid to rent supplies / boards / gear at an appropriate beach, and you
could get paid to demo/sell kiteboarding gear, and you could get paid to test
/ evaluate kiteboarding gear. A lot of different angles on that.

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rfrey
More timeless advice is to love what you do.

~~~
glassx
"If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with"

