Joy in Work
That's new...
This is my office. It has been “under repair” for 5 months since our campus was hit with a tornado. It is not the best office in the building or even the best office I’ve had in the ten years at my job. I’ve only come to realize lately that I don’t really care. The things that matter to me are not the trappings of my job so much, though I’m going to be exceedingly pleased when I have a window again; it’s what I do when I’m in this office.
Feels obvious, right? What you do should matter more than where you are when you do it. And it feels plain when you compare it something relatively frivolous but I don’t think people real think about it.
I don’t think people want to think about the worth of their jobs even though most of us spent 40 hours or more doing them each week.
I think about it a lot because time matters. I want to spend my time doing things that I love and enjoy and have meaning to me and the world at large.
I love my job.
Not so much that pink foam protecting me from the impending winter but there are so many things I do week to week that I thoroughly enjoy, that matter to me and to millions of people outside in the world.
- What does that make you think when I say I love my job?
- Workaholic
- No personal life
- Uncool
Add to it that this job was a last ditch effort after I was rejected from all the grad schools I applied to in 2004.
I know, right? Sooper loser. I must be a defense against feeling mediocre.
How many times have you been told or heard “do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” How many times have you heard that this week? I think it is so great of you can turn your passion into a source of income, especially if you can support yourself on it alone. That’s amazing. And its really unlikely.
It takes years to get good enough at any one thing and years still to get good enough that people will pay you for it. That may change with things like Patreon in the future but today? Today I’ve got a mortgage.
If it sounds less than lofty, it is and it is more practical. Find something you love in what you do.
When you love something about what you do, you tend to be better at it. You put more effort in it. You get better at it. Your bosses notice it. Ideally, you get so good at it, it becomes your Thing and you get paid to do it.
And one weird day, you’re no longer working and doing what you love.
Really, it’s essentially exactly the same thing as finding your passion it’s just finding it in the room you’re already in rather than in the possible world.
Thanks to Gray for writing the below that started me thinking about this a few weeks ago, If you don’t read him at Love Life Practice, you are missing out.
Should you do what you love?