More than once I’ve read, somewhere on the web, someone sneering that “do what you love” is pie-in-the-sky, ridiculous, and even irresponsible advice.
Their anger is huge, the disdain palpable.
Despite the fact that I’m a huge proponent of doing what you love, I get it, the anger and the disdain both.
It hurts
See, it’s really easy to feel betrayed, especially if you’ve already staked your life on doing what you love — and it’s backfired.
There are lots of reasons we all get into academia, but one of the most prominent is that we love the things we’re reading and thinking about. We love teaching. We love the combination of people and solitude, the crazy conferences balanced with grading in a coffee shop at two in the afternoon. We love wrestling with ideas, engaging conversations across articles and panels and emails and books.
We spend a lot when we go into this game — not just tuition, but time and lost earnings and a sense of being in step with our peer group career-wise.
Sometimes it doesn’t work out, often for reasons that have nothing to do with us. And at those times, the push to do what we love can look like nothing more than a big joke. And us the gullible marks covered in key lime pie.
Why I believe in it anyway
Everything I’ve seen and everything I’ve done tells me that doing what you love is essential for long-term happiness, whether you’re doing it for pay or not. If you value happiness (and not everyone does — to each her own), then it’s pretty basic.
If you’ve ever gotten stuck in a life without the things you love — punching the clock, trying to find ways to make the time go by faster, distracting yourself with anything you can whether you’re at work or not — then you know this.
When we do what we love, we’re energized, we’re excited, we’re connected and passionate and creative and productive. And that’s not just good for us, but for everyone our lives touch.
If you’re in that place
Even so, if you’re in that place of anger and disdain and betrayal, let yourself be there. Where you are is where you are, and having lost something that precious is hard. Really hard. And you deserve the time to rail and stomp and otherwise throw yourself against what is.
Just hold open the possibility that one day, not now, but one day, it may be different. That you might find another path to your passion, that you might discover it somewhere you never expected it to be. It’s possible.
And in the meantime, know that you lost something. Know that it sucks. And know that it wasn’t you.
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