should You Do What You Love?

The late Steve Jobs, well known for the company he cofounded named Apple along with NeXT and Pixar, spent much of his time arguing that doing what you loved was very important. Jobs invested a large portion of his life into his work. However, his example of how one should go about work isn't in good company. Other people such as Jeff Haden, a ghost writer of more that thirty books and a columnist for CBS News, along with Carl McCoy a Boston based writer and musician, would disagree with Jobs' view. Many people have written articles expressing their views that doing what you love as a poor career choice. Doing what you love doesn't allow you to reach your full potential.

Doing what you love and doing what you're passionate about are two different things. Passion is different than love in many ways. With passion, it's your drive, it's something that bothers you and now you strive to fix it. Passion is a feeling that your work should be fully devoted to one certain subject. Doing a job you love means that you've found something that works good for you and that you enjoy doing. The problem is that if there is nothing to fix, nothing to strive for, then your job will eventually become boring. When you work toward a goal that you have to make a change or to fix an issue then your job is worth something more. I'm not saying that doing what you love is bad, however, doing something you're passionate about will allow you to have a more meaningful job experience.

In todays world the job market is competitive and often the jobs people want are hard to come by. Sometimes the jobs that we say we love aren't available. People don't consider the amount work that goes into working up the ladder to a desired position. When considering a job that you love, people often forget about the time and effort that it truly takes, and they may even lose love they once had for the job. Therefore, looking solely for a job that you love is not beneficial. Ghost writer Jeff Harden says that working hard and getting praise develops a sense of achievement and will cause one to develop a passion for the job, “if you practice hard enough soon you might find you're the best in your group of students… Thats great feedback and it motivates you to keep practicing. Then you’re one of the best in a larger group and thats motivating too. Practicing and achievement is a gradual, self-reinforcing process.” (464) Through working on a task you get better at it and eventually you become passionate about a job. Being good at a job allows you to enjoy it and enjoyment in a job produces passion.

“Do what you love’ is an important message, but its unwise to build a career on the notion that we should all be paid our passions. The advice captures only part of the story. It tells us how excellent work might be accomplished — by loving it — but it doesn't tell us why the work should be done. What is the point of all the effort? What is being worked toward?” (460) In this excerpt that doing what you love isn't rewarding. It isn't enough to simply find something that you love dong and then decided thats the job for you and the rest of your life. Just because you love a job does not qualify it to be a career path, otherwise people would look for ways to make money by doing everyday hobbies and activities that should not be income producing activities.

Haden says, “Don’t focus on the value your work offers you,’ Newport says. ‘That’s the passion mindset. Instead focus on the value you produce through your work: how your actions are important, how you’re good at what you do and how you're connected to other people.’ When you do, the passion will follow — and if you work hard enough, someday you'll be so good they can’t ignore you.” (465) Doing what you love will only lead you to a low paying job as you wait for your “big break” that might never come and possibly might not exist. The work we do can still be excellent even if it not a love for the worker. Love can still come over time, it doesn't have to be at the foundation of the career.

Another issue is the issue of how many things people love, “Sure, there are many people doing what they genuinely love. But how many of us only love one thing? Its romantic to think that each person is destined for one career path, one capable of being discovered with sufficient soul searching. But most people have multifaceted interests and abilities and could probably be successful and happy in several fields,” (466) McCoy Says. When people have to sit down and think about all the jobs they would love, its often hard to decide which one job would bring them the most joy. Furthermore, when it comes to deciding something as vital and life changing as a career, when given multiple options humans will chose wrong every time. We think too much with our hearts and not our heads when the matter and feeling of love is involved. Doing what you love will bring you no satisfaction, no fulfillment later in life. There is no “We did it!” in solving a huge issue for the simple fact that we will chose to love something that is complete and ready for success instead of failure. Why, when given the choice, would we chose to love a career that would not early on benefit us?

Finally, why do something that is already good? For most people, the job they claim to love would be higher paying, better benefits, and well developed. Most people would honestly love to live a better life than the one they have now and they believe that a better, higher paying, job is the way to get there. That sadly just is not true. Even if you find a job that love, what will it bring other than short term happiness? Theres nothing to fix and theres nothing to work towards making better. All too often the easy way out is the way we take, the road thats clear and straight is the one we will drive.

As a society today we demand to know. Its arguable that the reason we love certain things is because of the controllability we have over them. When we are the captain of our own ship its easy to decide to take the calmer waters. In doing so, you'll miss the adventure and thrill of not knowing. Simply not knowing how one situation will end can make life more fulfilling. For once, allowing the universe to decide your faith may be what we are all missing.

Find a job that you're passionate about that needs some work to it, and go into that job to improve it and improve the world by doing so. When we decide that what we are going to do is chose a job that to develop and help make the world better, then we're choosing to make something better than it was before we got to it. That's how we will get our sense of fulfillment and from that, you'll love what you do.

In conclusion, doing a job that you love seems desirable. However, it may leave you with broken dreams. It's not something that you can go into and make yours, most of the time. Its not something that can really give you fulfillment and purpose. All too soon you'll find yourself stuck in a pattern of work and rest and become numb to the love for the job you once had. Instead, find your passions, look for something that bothers you and then strive to fix it. The world is full of problems that need fixing, so finding your fixer upper job shouldn’t be a big challenge. Its not about doing what you love in the end, its about loving what you do.

Haden, Jeff, Mr. "The Changing Landscape Of Work in the Twenty-First Century."

McCoy, Carl, Mr. "The Changing Landscape Of Work in the Twenty-First Century."

Tokumitsu, Miya, Ms. "The Changing Landscape Of Work in the Twenty-First Century."