

Do what you love mirage - ct
http://devcomponents.com/blog/?p=633

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pjhyett
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
I love to eat with a roof over my head, and I love to sleep in a warm bed.

~~~
smokinn
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
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.

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rapind
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
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
Pretty much. I think it's a genetic thing with our species to always want
more. Grass is greener etc.

~~~
misterbwong
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...

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gizmo
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
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.

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manvsmachine
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
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
exactly, its' not necessarily the work, it's everything that surrounds the
work that makes doing quality work impossible.

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jsankey
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.

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xenonite
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
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...

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

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10ren
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.

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drc1912
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).

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pwnstigator
_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.

