Help
Sign In
career
April 2008 
Don't do what you love and the money will follow??
Posted on Dec 21st, 2007
by 
Duff
Duff
I found a very interesting blog today called Brazen Careerist, written by author Penelope Trunk.
I stumbled upon a facinating recent post entitled "Bad Career Advice: Do What You Love." Here's an excerpt:
I find this really interesting, because I've generally subscribed to the belief that we should do what we love for work, to do what we would pay to do if we had the money. But yet work still involves things that are unpleasant at times.
Ms. Trunk's distinction is useful: if we do what we are, i.e. focus on our signature strengths and use them every day for a goal bigger than ourselves, then we are much more likely to have a happy and successful career. The research from Martin Seligman and others studying happiness leads to the same conclusion. People would rather not be at work, yet report greater happiness when they are working then when they are at home "doing what they love."
As a kid, I really liked playing video games. I fantasized about being a game tester for Nintendo Power. A friend of mine in high school ended up programming video games, but I'm glad I didn't go that route. He was and is a programmer. I was and am a philosopher, life coach, and yogin, as well as a bit of a tech geek. I would find my life unfulfilling if I got to play video games all day every day.
My work as a life coach, and my work as a host and producer at Falling Fruit is at times quite difficult! There are days I'd rather play video games, or read, or just be lazy. If I just "do what I love" in those moments, I'll be out of a job, and ultimately unfilled at work.
Trunk's other point is that just having a job can be rewarding for the human contact and the feeling of being part of something greater than yourself. This is a big reason I'm not doing full-time life coaching! Working alone is lonely, and as big as my personal vision is for helping people, I need this feeling of being part of a team, working together for a worthy goal.
On the other hand, lots of what I do at Falling Fruit and coaching is exactly what I'd do if I was independently wealthy. I love good conversation, which I get to participate in as a host of Falling Fruit (and just in the office!). I love creative tech projects, which is fulfilled by being a producer, and giving my ideas to Vince about the website. And I love knowing that what I do daily helps people to become more conscious and more resourceful, which is the feeling I get about our content, and about my personal coaching work.
And I totally resonate with this quote from Trunk's post:
There were times in my life I agonized about doing anything, because it wasn't exactly what I loved. I still do this on occassion. But I'm happier overall just doing anything, just being productive, and just being part of a team.
I'm so grateful to have the work I have!
I stumbled upon a facinating recent post entitled "Bad Career Advice: Do What You Love." Here's an excerpt:
Often, the thing we should do for our career is something we would only do if we were getting a reward. If you tell yourself that your job has to be something you’d do even if you didn’t get paid, you’ll be looking for a long time. Maybe forever. So why set that standard? The reward for doing a job is contributing to something larger than you are, participating in society, and being valued in the form of money.
The pressure we feel to find a perfect career is insane. And, given that people are trying to find it before they are thirty, in order to avoid both a quarterlife crisis and a biological-clock crisis, the pressure is enough to push people over the edge. Which is why one of the highest risk times for depression in life is in one’s early twenties when people realize how totally impossible it is to simply “do what you love.”
Here’s some practical advice: Do not what you love; do what you are. It’s how I chose my career. I bought the book with that title - maybe my favorite career book of all time - and I took the quickie version of the Myers-Briggs test. The book gave me a list of my strengths, and a list of jobs where I would likely succeed based on those strengths.
I find this really interesting, because I've generally subscribed to the belief that we should do what we love for work, to do what we would pay to do if we had the money. But yet work still involves things that are unpleasant at times.
Ms. Trunk's distinction is useful: if we do what we are, i.e. focus on our signature strengths and use them every day for a goal bigger than ourselves, then we are much more likely to have a happy and successful career. The research from Martin Seligman and others studying happiness leads to the same conclusion. People would rather not be at work, yet report greater happiness when they are working then when they are at home "doing what they love."
As a kid, I really liked playing video games. I fantasized about being a game tester for Nintendo Power. A friend of mine in high school ended up programming video games, but I'm glad I didn't go that route. He was and is a programmer. I was and am a philosopher, life coach, and yogin, as well as a bit of a tech geek. I would find my life unfulfilling if I got to play video games all day every day.
My work as a life coach, and my work as a host and producer at Falling Fruit is at times quite difficult! There are days I'd rather play video games, or read, or just be lazy. If I just "do what I love" in those moments, I'll be out of a job, and ultimately unfilled at work.
Trunk's other point is that just having a job can be rewarding for the human contact and the feeling of being part of something greater than yourself. This is a big reason I'm not doing full-time life coaching! Working alone is lonely, and as big as my personal vision is for helping people, I need this feeling of being part of a team, working together for a worthy goal.
On the other hand, lots of what I do at Falling Fruit and coaching is exactly what I'd do if I was independently wealthy. I love good conversation, which I get to participate in as a host of Falling Fruit (and just in the office!). I love creative tech projects, which is fulfilled by being a producer, and giving my ideas to Vince about the website. And I love knowing that what I do daily helps people to become more conscious and more resourceful, which is the feeling I get about our content, and about my personal coaching work.
And I totally resonate with this quote from Trunk's post:
So if you are overwhelmed with the task of “doing what you love” you should recognize that you are totally normal, and maybe you should just forget it. Just do something that caters to your strengths. Do anything.
There were times in my life I agonized about doing anything, because it wasn't exactly what I loved. I still do this on occassion. But I'm happier overall just doing anything, just being productive, and just being part of a team.
I'm so grateful to have the work I have!
Access: Public
So, you are pulling it all together, and the more WE realize that all we do is all related, not in separate categories, it flows like MAGIC!
HERE'S TO MORE HIGH MAGIC FOR US ALL!
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK YOU DO, DUFF!
I'm a little confused by this post because it seems a bit contradictory. I believe that everyone should follow their bliss. There is no other purpose for being. It's about the journey not the end result. And without following our bliss, the journey will never be a fulfilling one.
Yes, it's always a good idea to be able to sum up one's stregnths and weaknesses when it comes to choosing a job or career, because knowing our strengths give us an immediate contribution that is valued - but let's not forget that the we can always reinvent ourselves at any given moment. Life is about constant creation.. and the moment we stop creating is the moment we die.
Perhaps I am taking the statement out of it's broader context, but to just forget about doing what we love because the task seems momentarily overwhelming… well… that seems a bit silly and defeatest.
What my strengths were 10 years ago are not what they are today. Not to say that those prior strengths are still not here and available to me… but through following my bliss, I have developed new strengths that serve me as well as others , and have taken me to places I had never previously even dreamed of going.
Omebo,
I too find it useful to follow my bliss, and to recommend this to others.
This post was commenting on Penelope Trunk's idea that many young people believe too strongly that they every minute of the journey should feel pleasant, when in fact following your bliss can be quite challenging.
Her recommendation, which I agree with, is to focus on more enduring qualities than momentary enjoyment. She indicated that focusing on “what you are” could be more helpful.
Our strengths do change, some more than others. A focus on on more lasting qualities about yourself is often useful in determining what career you will find most satisfying in the long-term, where your bliss really lies.
But everyone is different. Many different approaches can work.
I agree.
The going can get rough, but through becoming your purpose, which is process in self-assessing strengths and qualities relative to the desired career in manifestation, at least who you are or who you are becoming has a better chance of aligning harmoniously with what you end up doing.
That is what I got out of the post, Duff, which I call 'bringing it all together.' Am I close?
The distinction is between doing an activity that you love, and doing activities based on who you are.
Many of the activities we like to do have nothing to do with who we are and what our purposes are–for instance, playing video games.
When you do things in alignment with your higher values and purpose, they won't always be pleasant, but you'll be doing what is most important, and even if it is hard, there is often a deeper sense of satisfaction with life when one lives this way.
Do you think that following your higher-purpose is the same as you following what is instinctive to your core nature and doing what you really love?
I have found through intuition that people actually love doing what is harmoniously in alignment with their higher-purpose. The earth experience seems to be the zig zag route we take in finding that out, over and over again on different levels.
Like Dorothy in Wizard of Oz? That yellow brick road, which took her back to the place she was trying to escape (home)? The road to Oz/home was perilous too (Lions, Tigers, Bears), but suddenly what she desired made it justifiable, even though the path was not always fun.
Is there a difference between what you really love doing and what your highest purpose is; or is this the main point in self-discovery as our earth experience?
What is your opinion or what has been your experience or observation, Duff?
I am interested in your thoughts!
Following your higher purpose and following your core nature sound the same to me. The key is “higher” or “core.” The idea of “doing what you love” can easily be co-opted by “lower” or “periphery” aspects of your self.
What Ms. Trunk is pointing out is that the difference between your life's work and your paid work. Many people who know what their life's work is (like people on Zaadz) are doing something else for paid work, and often this is ok! For example, our society is not set up to pay parents for changing diapers, but this is very legitimate work. So even though a mom has determined that her life's work is to raise a child, she works during the day and pays a babysitter! I still love getting paid to do my life's work, but I'm beginning to realize that much of my life's work can't be easily monitized, like being a wonderful partner and friend.
I do agree with you Bryan that when you align with your higher purpose, you can enjoy doing things you never thought you would love. I never thought I'd enjoy business, for example, but the details of starting and maintaining a business can be really fun now that I've discovered the realm of “conscious business.”
I love the story of the Wizard of Oz. One of the esoteric things I noticed when I recently saw a kids play of it was that Dorothy's three companions (the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Lion) are the three psychic functions in Gurdjieff's system and in the Enneagram–the head/intellect, the heart/emotions, and the gut/will. The three companions are shown by the Wizard that they always had what they were looking for, but just didn't know how to access their fullness, and via a little linguistic magic, they find their powers and become whole (which is what great coaches and therapists do!!).
If you believe in intuition, then you'd believe that I saw your love the OZ story intuitively, which is why I used the story as an illustration – perfect example of how your core nature can be conclusively correlated with what you love through intuition – but then again, who doesn't love the OZ-story, right?
So, what you say is, that you have not found it conclusive that higher-purpose and the work you love to be the same?
That the two can overlap but also be mutually exclusive?
P.S. In a podcast I did metaphysically reviewing both Oz and Wonderland, I stated the Scare Crow, Lion, Tin Man, Glinda, Wicked Witch, Munchkins were all aspects of Dorothy's higher to lower vibrations with corresponding perspectives.
So, what you say is, that you have not found it conclusive that higher-purpose and the work you love to be the same?
What I'm saying is that your higher purpose might include a job that you don't like.
Well, that can be said also for what you love doing. For example, “I love fishing, but I hate the smell,” or “I love photography, but I hate researching for great landscapes…”
Don't you think that creativity and innovation can resolve that being 'a given?'
I find that people who do not like a job or part of a job, which is over all gratifying, is that creativity needs to be applied in order to make meaningful connections with that work, not as a ploy or psychological defense mechanism, but as an opportunity to appreciate a process through creativity.
What do you think?
Totally–using creativity to find enjoyment of the difficult parts of our work, reconnecting to why we are doing it, can be very useful learning.
I have learned to love “productivity”–which is unusual for a philosopher!!