July 3, 2008

Never love what you do for a living!!!!

I am sure that this is something that everyone aspires to achieve. Every person entering the work scene has this as his/her dream and old people regret not having had this during their professional life. The dream of doing what one loves, not loving what one does (they read almost the same; however, carry a subtle difference).
This too was my dream, to get into something that I love. In fact, every profession I wanted to pursue. Being one of fickle mind, I have had my share of dream professions ranging from the mundane army general to all-important doctor. If some had asked me when I was in school what I was to become, in most cases I would have said a doctor. Then I did a turn around and joined engineering. During my engineering, I wanted to get into some Masters and become a researcher. Never once did I think that I would take the management side of business. I have always been a techie. However, here I am, a management graduate in finance, working for one of the top-notch financial institutions. This is my learning.
Never do something that you love as a profession. Always pick a profession that you like and not love. Pursue it so that you are doing something that you like. Keep the thing that you love to pursue along with the profession. I do agree that this sounds ridiculous. If one is given an opportunity to pursue some profession that they love, they should not do so. The answer is that profession over a period becomes a mean to an end. One cannot and should not restrict one’s life to work. Work is something that gives you the means to enjoy life. If you take the thing that you love the most and make a job out of it, the sheer monotony of having to do it over and over again will kill the love for it. I will give a rather vulgar example, but one that will drive the point home.
Human beings are built to enjoy sex. However, think of a prostitute. She does it for a living; so much so that there will come a point where she does not even what to think about it outside of her ‘work’. Take a sportsperson. As a child imagine that he loved running and feeling the wind in his face. As he grew older, he pursued running as a career. However, he did not take into account the amount of training he will have to do, the amount of effort he has to put in. finally, when he is running the actual race, he is not enjoying the wind in his face anymore. He is looking to see what his position is or what would his sponsor think of his current place. He is not driven by the love for what he is doing, but by the desire to excel in what he is doing. He does not love running anymore.
That is why I started by saying that one should not do what one loves for a living. There are many of so-called writers around, who dabble in blogs. Imagine if some publisher came to us and told us to write books, one after another. There would be a period, we would have to cater to a larger audience, and the entire joy of writing will be devoid in our works.

Therefore, today I vow,
If given a choice,
Never to pursue
What I love as a profession.
I will pursue, what I like,
Leaving the love to remain.

10 comments:

Unknown said...

I am very sorry that beg to differ from you.If start liking something yu will start loving it as well.
It becomes a drudgery only when you start selling it.it becomes so that you start depending on it for your living.Then it becomes a compulsion. then you are not able to stop doing it even for a moment ehrn you wold like to remain away form it foe some time.
so decide not to sell something youlike or love for living.
just od it for the love of it or liking of it. It may fetch you some earning be happy with what ever you get of it but if you start it as a profession then you start craving for something and start getting disppointed if you dont achieve then all problems start.
You quoted a sex worker.
Iwould like to quote Mahakavi Subramanya Bharathi who wrote tamil poems.
They are so exciting, so inspiring and enchanting stiil so simple. They are certainly marvellous for a man who lived hardly 30plus years.
He could do it bease he loved them liked them and lived them
Anything professional brings on you a monotony.
If you look at the other way, if you try to do something without liking it or loving it possibly you may not do it all. Even if you do it you will not be clasical one. you many not like or love the work yourself.

Lazy Lavender said...

What I don't understand is that, someone who just finished talking about 'dignity of labor', assigns adjectives such as 'mundane' and 'all-important' to professions. Was it meant to be ironic, or is it just me?

aditya said...

@ Dad,
There is no reason that one should be sorry to differ from me, this is my view point, it need not be yours.
I will take up your Mahakavi for he is an example well quoted. All during his life, he wrote because he loved it. And if I have my history correct, there have been very few instances, more like exceptions to the rule, rather than the rule itself, Mahakavi lived his live in penury. This can be said for almost all the people who pursued what they loved. Now the question is what I love with no comforts against a life of relative more comforts and opportunities to do what I love.
The final detail is in what you love. If you wish to exhibit what you love to the world, then you are welcome to live it. However, if what you love is personal as is my writing, then pray remember that I pursue it behind closed doors, not for all to see. In this event, I am not an exhibitionist; I do not need approval, I want to enjoy what I love, therefore it has to be an hobby rather than a professions

aditya said...

@LL
The answer is in the difference between dignity for what others do and love for what one does. In the end of the day, regardless of the matter if I am doing something I love or not, you do not have the right to trample on it.

Lazy Lavender said...

No, no. That is not what I asked. Not love; or trample. My question is, if I were to say, respect, others jobs, the dignity of labor and all, am I allowed to call an army job 'boring', and call a doctor's job 'all-important'.

The only thing that reaches my head is - it doesn't matter if you call the professions dirty or boring, but treat the people with respect.

Oh forget it. I shouldn't be trying to figure out how you think. There are a hundred thousand other things I don't understand.

Anyways, I agree. To this post. Don't do what you love, for a living. Though I am trying to find out my own reasons why.

And BTW, does this mean you will not become a writer one day?

Unknown said...

There are a lots of people who let go many things to remain passionate on the things they like.Bharathiar is one such person.
But one if really becomes passionate about something , he may not hesitate to let go anything even his earnings. there was a picture Ashok kumar By MKT. He climbs the wall through a python mistaking it for a ropeto meet his love.Paaion made him blind and refused to see a pythonn
Try to to like what you get that is pragmatism fi you dont get what you like.

Destination Infinity said...

In fact, I would suggest to take a job you hate. If you are a marketing person by heart - Take research. If you are a professor by heart - take marketing. That makes work really challanging. It imparts a lot of skills in to either and makes them more balanced people and not tilted to any extremities. (I am not talking about exceptional people here).

Destination Infinity.

aditya said...

@ Destination Infinity
Let me first begin with the fact that I think that your name in more ways than one represents my endeavors to understand life and all that is concerned with it. However, just like the name, I am sure that I will enjoy the journey, for the destination is unreachable.
There is a small issue with taking a job that you hate; the issue being that you are never driven to excel in it for the reason that you hate it. In some corner of your heart, you will always want to do something that you do not hate. Again, there is a fundamental flaw with what I have said. I will delve with that in a new post. So I am not discussing that. Coming back to the learning that one may gain from the vocation, how useful can it be if I do not like it? Let me ask you this way, of all the subjects one does in graduation, why did we learn the ones we did not like, other than the fact that we had exams to give and we could not graduate if we did not pass in them. All the exams were cases of extreme information nausea. We take in too information for an evening and then vomit it all out in the paper next day. The day after the exam, we do not even remember anything remotely connected with the subject.
Work has to be a part of life, it should not be life and certainly not far removed from it. If you love work, then it is life, if you like it, a part of it and if you hate it, far removed from it.
Choose - hate, love and like

Anonymous said...

good read... may be will peep in to read more in leisure... may be when u r free check out one of my post... It's not same but then i do see some similarity.

http://dolbyarun.com/blog/tell-me-your-dreams/

Destination Infinity said...

Work is a part of life, I agree. But life itself is not and should not be a bed of roses. You may be very comfortable in sleeping in them but you dont grow if you dont take the tumble and toil along with the roses! I was talking about taking a vocation outside the comfort zone because it instills more skills in us. It makes us take more challenges. It helps us to adapt to different circumstances.

No Aditya, your job is not there to make you happy, or make you like it. If you like your job, its time to change it! Your job should challenge your skills and make you cry as much as it makes you laugh. Because only when the going gets tough, the tough gets going.

Destination Infinity.