
To fixate on finding work that makes us happy is a luxury - austinlchurch
https://medium.com/@austinlchurch/8976ee275d85#.mftuj4fm1
======
mamadrood
Screw that. I don't want to live just to pay the bills, buy a house too big
for me, a big car that I don't need and consume more than I should.

If you think the way of life of your elders made the world a better place, go
ahead, think and do like them, maybe it will make you happy, like them.

I may be disrespectful, but for me it looks like my elders left me with a
suffocating planet populated by too many people taking too many drugs.

And I don't want to be a part of this, I'm not smart enough to change the
future, I probably won't do much good to mankind, so I'm going to enjoy myself
and leave the tiniest footprint when I'm leaving. Nobody owes us fun, we owe
it to ourselves.

------
ashark
“You a lawyer, Frank?”

“Me? A lawyer? No. Why?”

“Hoping you might be, is all. I could use a lawyer. Whaddya do, then?
Advertising man, or what?”

“No. I work for Knox Business Machines.”

“Whaddya do there? You design the machines, or make them, or sell them, or
repair them, or what?”

“Sort of help sell them, I guess. I don’t really have much to do with the
machines themselves; I work in the office. Actually it’s sort of a stupid job.
I mean there’s nothing — you know, interesting about it, or anything.”

“Interesting?” John Givings seemed offended by the word. “You worry about
whether a job is ‘interesting’ or not? I thought only women did that. Women
and boys. Didn’t have you figured that way.”

“Oh, look, the sun’s coming out!” Mrs. Givings cried. She jumped up, went to
the picture window and peered through it, her back very rigid. “Maybe we’ll
see a rainbow. Wouldn’t that be lovely?”

The skin at the back of Frank’s neck was prickling with annoyance. “All I
meant,” he explained, “is that I don’t like the job and never have.”

“Whaddya do it for, then. Oh, okay okay –” John Givings ducked his head and
weakly raised one hand as if in a hopeless attempt to ward off the bludgeon of
public chastisement. “Okay; I know; it’s none of my business. This is what old
Helen calls Being Tactless, Dear. That’s my trouble, you see; always has been.
Forget I said it. You want to play house, you got to have a job. You want to
play very nice house, very sweet house, then you got to have a job you don’t
like. Great. This is the way ninety-eight-point-nine per cent of the people
work things out, so believe me buddy you’ve got nothing to apologize for.
Anybody comes along and says ‘Whaddya do it for?’ you can be pretty sure he’s
on a four-hour pass from the State funny-farm; all agreed. Are we all agreed
there, Helen?”

\- Richard Yates, _Revolutionary Road_

------
ravitation
The accusations of "bloodsucking millennials" coming from other higher earning
millennials (and ones who usually followed their "passions" to get there) is
beyond ridiculous, it's actually a bit nauseating. The author starts the piece
by saying that he is not only a millennial, but one that does work that
intersects with his passions. That preface pretty much destroys any
credibility he has to discuss dropping one's passions for a paycheck.

Not everyone has a passion that also involves a high paycheck, and since yours
does you really have no right to criticize those that don't.

This line really sums up the sentiment.

> You do not deserve to pursue your passion.

Who are you to judge what someone deserves? From the contents of the piece,
you gave up nothing in the pursuit of your paycheck (and if you did you should
probably rethink the structure of the piece). Why should anyone else?

Also, did you ever stop to think that maybe Santiago's father's passion was to
provide for his family, and so - in a way - he was following his passion?

This is all coming from a millennial that has a well paying job, and one that
is also generally pretty damn proud of his generation.

Go back to reading your Ayn Rand novels.

------
kbody
"Screw Your Passion. Get a Job." what a title, and the same attitude
throughout the article. While I'm not one of the people your post targets, I
really dislike this kind of rhetoric. Where you have to use "strong" words to
cause rumble for attention.

Back to the core topic. I would argue about balance though. A lot of people
are lucky to be in a position where they have that extra room. It's good to
use part of that room,

There are parts of the world where that room was present for a long time, and
yet due to fallacy of logic and paternal traditions people were forces to a
"safe" choice. Now that this room is not existent, you have the majority of
people that hate their job and their "safe" choice is not safe anymore. At
least with passion it would have been easier and happier even to the whole
society.

Suffice to say, that parents of course will try to do everything to take care
of their family. No doubt about that.

~~~
ageofwant
The mystical myopic millennial trope is quite popular. It seems to me to be
just a reflow of "kids these days"

"Our sires' age was worse than our grandsires'. We, their sons, are more
worthless than they; so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more
corrupt." Horace, 20BC

But maybe more jaded, I also see a business owner looking to maximize profit
and minimize expenses by gas-lighting a bunch of kids into shoveling shit all
day for peanuts.

------
skizm
I think most people commenting here missed the key lines:

> Are you a burden to those around you?

> No? Good on you! By all means pursue your passion. Feed your Chinese Crested
> Hairless.

> Yes? Screw your passion. Get a job. Support yourself. Pay your own way so
> that you can stop draining the people and resources around you.

~~~
ravitation
Okay. Define burden.

~~~
h_r
How about "a net drain on resources that the provider of the resources would
prefer to spend elsewhere"?

------
adregan
In my 20s I got my masters degree in poetry and taught literature. I was
content with the work but had a programming hobby that was more creatively
satisfying than teaching. I quit my job to follow my passion. Fast forward
several years, and I'm still programming; I'm pretty good at it, and I really
enjoy the work.

My passion was being creative, and I used to write poetry, but I found a way
to express my creativity and make good money in programming (I truly find
programming to be a transcendent creative process—much like writing poetry).

I, like many others, have had times when my oxen were in the ditch, and I had
no choice but to work to get them out. Some folks are stuck in that place. But
if you can, try to involve a little passion in your work and carve out a space
where you can feel at least a little fulfilled at the end of a day.

P.S. I just read the author's bio, and coincidentally, it's not so different
from my path, so flip a coin and take either person's advice—or neither
person's advice.

------
sheraz
Relevant: Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs (TV show) fame: Don't follow your passion

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CVEuPmVAb8o](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CVEuPmVAb8o)

~~~
FussyZeus
This is an excellent talk, but I wonder if Rowe realizes that the days of blue
collar work are numbered? Tradesmen will be around for quite a while yet,
sure, but everything will eventually be turned over to the machines. That's
why we need to seriously invest in a proper changeover system to handle the
droves of unemployed.

------
wears_sweaters1
Trade financial stability now for passions later is my take on this post, this
resonates with me strongly as I'm at this very crossroads (and im a
millennial) and leaning towards financial stability to provide foundation on
which to find my passion. I always found it hard to "explore" what I wanted to
do because time was always limited by how much money I had and I never had a
lot.

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
See, I've actually found the opposite: I was much happier when I stopped
pretending the large salary was actually enough to justify wasting a third of
my life, and just worked at the library on a cheap laptop while helping a
friend build his house to cover bills.

People also like me a lot better now that I don't hate a third of my life, am
not trying to compensate for that with money, and have a certain zest from
getting to genuinely work on things I'm passionate about.

YMMV, as some passions are more expensive than mine to get in to, but my point
was that there's a spectrum of reasonable reactions to work-life balance, and
the choice needs to be individual.

------
at-fates-hands
I worked with someone who had something similar to the author. I worked with
an Iranian developer at one of my first gigs. He said his family fled Iran
after the fall of the Shah because his family had been marked for death since
his father was a successful businessman and owned a growing telecommunications
company.

When his family got here, he was just happy to be alive. His father used his
technical knowledge to land a job at a computer company. He was told the same
thing by his father. Work to provide for your family, _then_ create your
opportunities to do what you love. His father told him it was more important
to be employed doing something, then sitting around chasing your dreams not
doing anything.

He said it was because he had to work menial jobs, it allowed him to go to
school, get a degree, and move up in the world.

------
randomnumber314
Why do people, such as this author, treat the world as this dichotomy of
passion and work? Isn't wanting to be great at whatever you do a passion?
Isn't wanting to be challenged and learning new things a passion? I've worked
(literally) in the shit, and now I'm writing this on a $2,500 Mac a company
bought for me, while sitting at a desk. I think the lesson us millennials are
failing to learn is that you can pursue your passion, but find a way to do so
that is valuable to others.

Want to end world hunger? Okay, quit whining about the 1%, get to work, and
create an organization that can make that happen. If it truly was your
passion, there shouldn't be anything stopping you from accomplishing it. It
seems, then, that the "passion" is really just an excuse for not trying.

------
ivemadeahugem
I think the current focus on people following their passion is partly a
practical response to the needs of creative/knowledge work.

No one ever got pulled aside from ditch-digging to be asked "I'm just not sure
if you're _really_ into this"

------
twoquestions
You really can't do your best work unless you're at least somewhat passionate
about it. I don't get why people can think you're more productive at a job you
dislike or hate and have to force yourself to get anything done, rather than
doing something valuable that you'll get things done without huge amounts of
willpower.

Failing to find something that your're passionate about and valuable is
cheating both yourself and other people out of the value you could be
creating, if not for your masochism.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Entering work life gets one disillusioned about that pretty fast. Those kinds
of jobs you want us to find are _very_ rare, and the only reliable way to love
a job that's accessible to the most of us is to keep harming your own soul
until you finally develop a case of Stockholm syndrome for your line of work.

Seriously, most jobs are about you doing stupid - and often morally
questionable - shit to enrich the owners, while only incidentally providing
any value to society at large, and only the minimum amount of value the
company can get away with. All of that in exchange for currency which you need
to stay alive.

Do you think grocery store clerks have _passion_ for their work? In
particular, are they passionate about all the shenanigans like washing old
meat with dishwashing fluid to make it smell less? No, they do this to stay
alive. Do you think programmers writing all those stupid superaddictive on-
line games have _passion_ for sucking money out of people who lack impulse
control? Well, maybe they do, but that's exactly the soul damage I'm talking
about.

So sure, by not working on something I'm passionate about I am "cheating" the
society out of the value I could be creating. Except that the society is not
often giving away jobs I can be passionate about without utterly destroying my
very self.

~~~
twoquestions
There's times I forget how lucky I am to _kinda_ like my job, and that most
people are forced to sell their time to some distant corporate noble rather
than providing value to their friends and neighbors. Thank you for reminding
me.

------
dwc
Ah, the never ending debate about passion.

What if you put that aside for a while and think about it in terms of going
with your strengths instead? Same thing, different angle. If there's any
choice about what job you might take, take the one where you can add the most
value, relatively. That's a job where you'll be appreciated more and hopefully
compensated well for. The thing is, there's a correlation there to passion,
but passion is not required.

------
lkjhgfdsa1
Parents choose to sacrifice their own happiness for the pursuit of happiness
of their children when they have children. This article applies to them, I
agree, because they have taken on a lifetime (or 18 years at least) commitment
to others' lives. Non-parents do not have to sacrifice their happiness for
anyone else and can therefore pursue their own happiness. I don't see anything
wrong with that. To assume that everyone must work a hard job they hate just
to make more money when there are alternatives is absurd. By this logic, I
should quit the job I'm working now doing something I like (software) simply
because I could make x times more money on Wall St. and be miserable. Or even
parents who are doing well and paying the bills: why would they pursue higher
paying jobs they hate when they are able to manage just fine? This one size
fits all solution seems illogical. And I won't even get into what happens to
the _idea_ of 'hard work' when automation starts to take over ...

------
sidlls
I have a different take on this. The idea of "pursue your passion" is a thing
in part for the reasons the author implies (or is explicit about) but he's
eliding something. He doesn't really touch on the capital owning class'
interest in cheap labor, and "find work that you're passionate about" is about
a subtle and indirect way of pursuing cheap labor, mainly by the implicit
suggestion that offering employment that fulfills a passion is itself
compensation to some degree. Edit for clarity: so my view is that blaming or
scolding millennials for this may be a bit misplaced. They've been raised in
an environment where they've been told repeatedly that they can (and should)
pursue their passions as their careers and also that it's possible and even
feasible for everyone to do so.

"Money doesn't by happiness" may be technically true, but it is necessary in
our society to fulfill basic needs and it's absurd to think its utility beyond
that diminishes significantly.

------
gumby
Oh come on: there's a hierarchy of needs and if one level is satisfied it
opens up options at another.

Or to put it another way: suffering is not itself a virtue, but the
willingness to suffer when needed certainly is. And if suffering is
unnecessary, failing to do so is hardly wrong!

My grandfather had a third grade education and worked quite hard; outside work
he enjoyed his life. He and my grandmother insisted that all the kids get
educations and were gratified that their kids could choose and enjoy a
different kind of fulfilment.

Baby boomers were spoiled by parents who found themselves in a prosperous
society after themselves having grown up in depression and war: they didn't
want their kids to have to live such a life. The results were mixed (I'm
younger than the boomers) but I still feel that was a great choice.

If you find yourself in a circumstance where that isn't possible then you need
to just put your shoulder to whatever grindstone you can.

------
gregpardo
I understand where this is coming from and yes many people are hung up on
passion but there are a lot of people breaking their backs out there with no
interest in what they are pursuing. It's not that complex, just weigh the pros
and cons of your options and pick something that's inline with your goals and
commitments.

------
jasode
submitted title: _" To fixate on finding work that makes us happy is a
luxury"_

blog actual title: _" Screw Your Passion. Get a Job."_

Both the submitted title and the blog's title do not pinpoint the author's
_main issue_ : don't make others (such as your parents) unfairly _pay_ for
your pursuit of passion.

It's not about "passion". It's about _funding_.

They are orthogonal. So... either:

1) pursue your passion part time while paying the bills with a "day job" \--
which is what many musicians, poets, novelists, artists, etc do.

2) consciously downsize your lifestyle and stick to the budget of a starving
artist (cheap apartment, used car, no Starbucks) while selling your artwork on
the street or whatever. When the big commission money from the Guggenheim
Museum comes in, you can start buying Starbucks.

Many variations of those 2 options can keep passion-seekers from burdening
their parents.

~~~
ravitation
That operates under the assumptions that you are:

1) _Making_ others pay for your pursuit of passion.

2) That having others paying for your pursuit of passion is unfair to them.

Neither of which are safe, or even good, assumptions to make.

Conversely, I am willing to assume that Santiago's father probably gladly paid
for some things that allowed his son to pursue his passions, and - as stated
in the piece - allowed him to do work that intersects his passions.
Immigrating was probably one of those things.

~~~
jasode
_> Neither of which are safe, or even good, assumptions to make._

I'm not making that assumption. I'm responding to the article. Author already
framed it with the question:

 _" Are you a burden to those around you?"_

That self-diagnostic question is really the main point of the article. The
"screw passion" in the title is just provocative bait. The article goes on to
admonish those who mentally say "yes" to that question.

~~~
ravitation
I am also responding to the article, and I'm also responding to your response
to the article. I'm responding to part of your response that seems to take the
assumptions that are made in the article at face value.

Yes, he promotes that self-diagnosis without defining _burden_ , which is also
kind of the point of my response to your comment.

~~~
jasode
_> , he promotes that self-diagnosis without defining burden,_

Personally, I don't _need_ the author to define "burden" for me to understand
his point.

Part of being an adult is to judge the financial relationship with your
parents as being fair. This includes _overriding_ your parents saying to you,
_" Oh don't mind us, we don't need that $5000 for a European vacation or
retirement funds. We want you to use it to produce your rap youtube video!"_

In other words, parents can be simultaneously "generous to you" and "unfair to
themselves".

No doubt you have your own idea of what is a burden which may be different
from many other readers but it doesn't really matter right? Every parent-child
dynamic is different.

~~~
ravitation
> but it doesn't really matter right?

Yes, it _absolutely_ does matter. The difference isn't that I'm defining the
meaning of _burden_ differently than you. It's that I'm choosing to _not_
broadly define it at all (because I _know_ that every dynamic _is_ different),
and that the author (and you) _are_ choosing to define it.

The author's entire point _completely relies_ on a universal definition of
_burden_ because he's also making a universal statement about following one's
passions. That universal definition doesn't exist because (as you said) every
dynamic _is_ different. So, his entire argument (the title of the piece) falls
apart once it's understood that the definition of _burden_ is inherently non-
universal.

Also, the word _burden_ is just not a very good (e.g. very descriptive) word
in this context.

~~~
jasode
_> falls apart once it's understood that the definition of burden is
inherently non-universal._

If you have a personal non-universal idiosyncratic definition of "burden",
please share it.

I assume its something compatible with _" ,gladly paid for some things that
allowed his son to pursue his passions,"_

(I don't think it would change the plug-and-play nature of the author's essay
but I'm willing to be shown that _your_ definition completely throws the
author's words into a mess of contradictions.)

~~~
ravitation
Okay... As a preface, when I say defining _burden_ I'm using it in the context
of this article and the question it poses.

> Are you a burden to those around you?

Where _burden_ is being used as an attribute, i.e. to be a _burden_. This
requires knowing what a _burden_ is, which you actually stated yourself as
being different from person to person.

> your own idea of what is a burden which may be different from many other
> readers

My logical reasoning, like I said, doesn't rely on some "personal non-
universal idiosyncratic" definition of _burden_ , it relies on the statement
you said yourself, that what a _burden is_ is contextual.

But, the author needs a universal definition (which is why I said that
_burden_ isn't a very good word), and part of that definition is a universal
judgement on the absolute moral correctness of being a _burden_.

Am I a burden on those around me? Yes? Well maybe that's okay, because being a
"burden" doesn't have to be inherently bad.

That Chinese Crested Hairless is a "burden" by some definition, but that's
okay.

A newborn certainly could be a "burden", but that's okay.

Someone's parents are paying for him or her to go to college and graduate debt
free, that certainly could be a "burden", but it's also okay. He or she
probably shouldn't drop out of school and get a job, so he or she can stop
being a "burden".

~~~
jasode
_> Am I a burden on those around me? Yes? Well maybe that's okay, because
being a "burden" doesn't have to be inherently bad._

Then all you have to do as a reader is personally define "burden" as _"
burden-that's-not-inherently-bad-which-is-okay"_ and therefore you mentally
answer _" no I'm not a burden"_ and the plea from the essay no longer applies.

Also, I don't assume the passion-chaser _coerced_ the parent to pay unfairly.
(That was _your_ assumption of my answer.) What's unfair is up to the reader
to decide.

~~~
ravitation
_Oh!_ So there's a bunch of context and nuance to the question? And a bunch of
other questions that need to be asked about like what is bad and what is good
(and what is okay), or why is it bad, or how long will it be bad? Because none
of those things are discussed in the article.

That pretty much undermines most of the "value" of the article, it skips all
those steps in the discussion and tries to sum it up under a single
(universal) question. And then goes on a terrible rant about how people don't
deserve their passions.

That's my entire point.

How about we just skip all that garbage (e.g. bullshit) about _screwing_ your
passions and just say: if you need a job, or if you need to pay bills, or if
you want to be self-reliant, getting a job is a good way to fix or do those
things?

Also, I never said anything about coercion, but it is implied by your use of
the word _make_ in the phrase: "don't make others (such as your parents)
unfairly pay for your pursuit of passion." And I just cast a light on the
_implication_.

~~~
jasode
_> So there's a bunch of context and nuance to the question?_

Yes! That specific context is in _your_ (the reader's) head!

 _> Because none of those things are discussed in the article._

It doesn't have to. You know more about your situation than the article.

 _> if you need a job, or if you _need_ to pay bills, or if you want to be
_self-reliant_, getting a job is a good way to _fix_ or do those things?_

And anyone can do the same to your sentence that you criticize the article
for. What does "need" actually mean? What does "self-reliant" actually mean?
What does "fix" actually mean? Every word in every article dissected. Ad
infinitum.

(No, that doesn't mean I want you to you to add "context and nuance" to all
those words. Same for the article about "burden." It would be tedious.)

To me, your special exemptions for burden look compatible with the article. To
you they don't. Seems to be a matter of about the lens of language rather than
a philosophical contradiction. I don't think the article depends on 7 billion
people to _universally_ agree on what "burden" means. Very few writings
outside of mathematical proofs can meet that standard of agreement.

~~~
ravitation
Okay. This will be my last comment in this chain.

A normal article would say: _Here 's why you should do X._ And then it would
explain why you should do X. This article does not do this. It makes a
universal statement about the immorality of being a burden, and says if you're
a burden you don't deserve your passions. And it fills the rest of the space
with strange anecdotes about Santiago, and ridiculous judgments from a man
who, from what I can tell, followed his passions to his paycheck.

If the only interesting part of an article is in my head, why was the article
written? This article provides absolutely no interesting insight at all.

I know meaning has been a hard sell in this conversation, but...

The difference between my conditional statement and a question, is that in my
statement I'm only providing a solution to a problem, not defining the
problem. The theme of my article would be "what to do if you need a job," not
"you need a job." I'm not trying to provide clarity into the "why" just the
"what." That's fundamentally different than this article.

I don't have a special exemption for _burden_. I'm not dissecting the
sentence. I just look for substance in the things I read, I didn't find any
here.

------
LKAndrew
As someone who makes a great salary on doing what I love to do, I don't think
it's all bullshit. Following your passion doesn't have to mean that you want
to be a rock star. It's ridiculous to think that you can't find something
you're passionate about in your work.

~~~
icebraining
If you're finding something in your work to be passionate about, are you
"following your passion"? I always read that expression to be about changing
your life, not adjusting your passions to fit it.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Yet the latter seems to be the only reliable way to accomplish it. I often
wonder, if those people writing about "following passion" actually found a
work that fits their passions, or made their passions fit their work...

------
FussyZeus
500\. HN hug of death? Anyone got a cached version?

~~~
imafish
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lFMSlIo...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lFMSlIonwxoJ:austinlchurch.com/screw-
your-passion-get-a-job/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=dk)

------
Taylor_OD
I've got a job I really enjoy now and make a decent salary. However it's my
time outside of work that I'm more concerned with. Out side of one key hobby I
don't really know what to do with my time so it doesnt feel wasted. I've never
had an issue putting in my 8+ hours day if I have something to look forward to
when I get home.

------
markwaldron
Getting 500 on and off. Web Archive:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20161221164424/http://austinlchu...](https://web.archive.org/web/20161221164424/http://austinlchurch.com/screw-
your-passion-get-a-job/)

------
evo_9
Work is a majority of your work. Keep that in mind folks.

It's well worth the effort, and justifiably something to fixate on.

~~~
the_gastropod
This is largely a choice—especially for the HN crowd, who typically earn above
average salaries. If you choose to inflate your lifestyle to match your
income, you're right—your work will be the majority of your [life's] work. If
you choose to not do this, you can have a relatively brief career, and spend
most of your life doing work you care about, regardless of the financials
associated with it.

------
RUG3Y
So, we should just stick with the status quo, be serfs and dig ditches?

------
apeacox
Bull shit presented in an interesting and rhetoric way.

------
treebeard901
Pretty good article. Some parts of this are very relevant to me at the moment.

