Doing What You Love Doesn’t Mean You’ll Always Love What You Do
In life we have choices. We make choices every day, many of which pave the path to our future. One of the most important choices is choosing a career. For most of us, this means choosing what we will spend doing for nearly 2,000 hours a year. So how do we choose? As children and young adults, we learn what is expected of us. “Get great good grades so you can get into a good college so you can get a good job.” Along the way we may or may or may not be encouraged by parents and peers to experiment with hobbies such as art, film, dance, writing, theatre, sports, general entrepreneurship etc. I say hobbies because most of us are told these things are JUST that, hobbies. We are taught that when we have extra time we do the things we love, and for approximately 60% of Americans, all other time is dedicated to doing things we hate…working.
“People spend too much time finding other people to blame, too much energy finding excuses for not being what they are capable of being, and not enough energy putting themselves on the line, growing out of the past, and getting on with their lives.” ~ J. Michael Straczynski
“Life is made up of many avoided excuses.”
Even if you think your career or life seems trivial, you likely had to accomplish quite a bit to get where you are today. (Or maybe you didn’t and if you didn’t then that’s why you are reading this) the point is that you likely didn’t love the steps it took to get where you are today. College applications and job interviews are not always easy or fun. You could have easily made excuses to not do the things you did to get where you are today. Luckily, you avoided making excuses. So, if after everything you have done to get where you are today you are unhappy, then you need to make some changes. It won’t be easy, but we already discussed this. Doing what you love is not always loving what you do. It will be hard, stressful, scary, and likely annoying. But most things in life that are worth doing are all of these things. Choosing a life partner, having a baby, relocating, saying no to that cupcake. All of these are HARD.
“Doing what you love is not always loving what you do. It will be hard, stressful, scary, and likely annoying. But most things in life that are worth doing are all of these things.”
For people who want to pursue an art, start a business, or completely start over and change careers. Many of you are told pursuing a dream is stupid, selfish, irresponsible, childish, etc. The people who tell you this, (even if it’s yourself), f*ck these people. I’m not saying to quit your job tomorrow and move across the country to pursue your mobile wedding chapel app. What I am saying is start taking the steps today to end up where you want to be in the future, so you can eventually quit the job you hate. You have to do what you really, really want to do. Even if it scares the sh*t out of you. Life is just a series of avoided excuses, so start avoiding the excuses that matter most. The excuses that might change your life.