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To get to do what we love is great. To discover what we love (especially at a young age) is a blessing. To be able to make money out of it is extremely satisfying. Make no mistake, “do what you love” is a well-meaning proposition. However, in the context of work and hustling in general, it seems some areas of this phrase have been sorely misunderstood. As it has now evolved into a one-size-fits-all blanket ideology that, at times, is causing more harm than good.
Here’s why “Do what you love.” can be a terrible advice:
- Love is a feeling.
- The idea has been overly romanticized.
- It has become toxic.
- We can also bloom where we are planted.
- It is counter-productive.
- It is alienating more than empowering.
- Not everything we love, we SHOULD monetize.
- We are missing opportunities.
Love is a feeling.
And feelings are fleeting. We cannot anchor our success on anything that comes and goes. To achieve our goals, what we need is purpose, commitment, discipline, and grit – not something as volatile as love.
It has been overly romanticized.
It makes a great story and it sells. So much so that it has become a cliche. A popular content we consume as we deal with life crises, anxieties, and stress. The entire premise now capitalizes on our being miserable at work and in life in general. We cannot let our struggles be a commodity. It’s something that we need to personally resolve relative to our own truth, needs, and goals.
It has become toxic.
Upon realizing that our present situation is a far cry from all the fairy tales sold on social media, some of us immediately go packing and drop everything. And for those of us who can’t afford to do just that, we choose to project our frustrations and anger on what we feel is something we’re only settling for. This is flawed. Our supposed love, for one thing, should not breed hate or indifference for another.
We can also bloom where we are planted.
We can examine our current circumstances without bias or social pressures. We can try to find value in it, look for opportunities around it, cultivate it, and grow it. Maybe we’re missing its potential because we’re too busy comparing or hating on it. As we know, we can also love what we do and it’s not always love at first sight.
It can be counter-productive.
A lot of us are weighed down because we don’t know what it is we’d love to do (popularly known as “passion“). They say we’re supposed to have one and without it, we feel stuck. And we start questioning ourselves thinking there’s something essentially wrong with us. So much so that it drives some of us into depression. It’s become the Eat-Pray-Love dilemma of the modern workforce generation. As we know by now, some people have it, some don’t, some don’t care (and that’s fine), some have several, some are well on their way of discovering it, and some thought they’d found it only to realize they were wrong. That’s the adventure and beauty of our journey. It’s an ongoing process of self-discovery. To think that our life is defined by a single passion is just self-limiting and not at all liberating.
It’s sometimes alienating more than empowering.
How do we tell a widowed mother of four juggling part-time jobs to make both ends meet that she’s got it wrong because she’s not doing what she loves? We don’t. What we do is check our privileges.
We can not always monetize what we love.
This is the tricky part. As if finding what we love was not hard enough, we also need to find one that can earn us money. There’s nothing wrong with that but it’s also not a hard rule. Our source of income can be a separate area of our life – this ultimately depends on us. We don’t always need to gain economically from what we enjoy doing. In fact, sometimes, leaving it alone is what keeps its magic alive.
We are missing opportunities.
What if, instead of looking for that something we love, we try looking for problems we can solve? Or create innovations that this world needs? Or offer answers? Or services currently unavailable? What if success lies in being a solution?
The point is, there’s always value in trying to discover things about ourselves. How we do that, when, where, why, and how, is completely up to us. We don’t need to acquire a way of life that’s inconsistent with our truth. If the premise was to enrich our lives, then the process shouldn’t be damaging to our mental health and overall wellness.
Maybe we didn’t even have a problem, to begin with. We just thought we did because an influencer out of nowhere started telling us we couldn’t be possibly doing what we love.
If you would like to gauge if maybe you are in a good place, after all, you might want to read my other post 8 Practical Reasons to Keep Your Job. And if you think you’ve found the one and want to make it work, you can also check out Why You Are Not Successful in Your Career or Life. Again, thank you for being a wokeforce ally. You are always welcome to share your thoughts. See you next week.
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