I have a friend. I like encouraging this friend. She’s got plenty of potential. But we were discussing dreams today, and she told me she didn’t have any.
I was floored!
How can anyone have no dreams? Dreaming of the future makes us human!
It was worse, though. I asked why she didn’t try to make writing a career. She obviously loved to craft her stories.
“No way. I love writing too much to make it a living.”
She imagines the deadlines, and the salesmanship that being a writer requires more and more, and couldn’t stand it!
Why do we settle for something we hate when our passions lead us so well to things that make us genuinely happy?
There’s a saying that I’m sure some of you have heard before that gets passed around my family pretty often:
You have to love what you do, but you can’t do what you love.
I’m throwing a flag on this one. I accepted it as truth, like so many children will when that beloved family member imparts a bit of wisdom. No longer.
We absolutely must do what we love. Passion creates drive, and drive is the only thing that can help us weather the storm of uncertainty that is the current economic environment. We may never be rich, but we’ll be happy.
At the same time, we have to be practical. It’s very easy to bend things to our passions. In college, when I’m allowed to pick my subject for research, I pick something to do with the publishing industry. In one case, it’s the economics of ebooks. Another case was a company analysis of a Forbes 100 company, I chose News Corporation, the holding company that owns The New York Post and HarperCollins. We can turn the dull into something we’re passionate about.
So let’s do what we love. Let’s find a way to survive doing that thing that drives us more than anything else. The internet has created a huge open market, now’s the time to take advantage of it.
“No way. I love writing too much to make it a living.”
I have to admit, I used to say that.
With writing, I think that was my way of explaining away the real fear – that having my writing rejected might crush my will to write. When I realized that it wouldn’t, I let go of saying that.
Although, I still say that about cooking and mean it. LOVE to cook. Have NO desire to have the pressure-filled life of a chef.
Hey, for some things, it’s true. I mean, we can’t all be supermodel astrophysicists! But some of our hobbies DEFINITELY apply themselves to the real world, and lend themselves to making yourself happy long term.
“…drive is the only thing that can help us weather the storm of uncertainty…”
Good point there. Because you can be hungry, but if you’re happy you’ll soldier on and use that hunger for even more drive. You’ll wear the old shoes & put another coat of polish on them, & you’ll do without cable & the fancy stuff.
But if you’re unhappy, well… add those things and you’ve got pure misery. And you’ll eat yourself from the inside out, make everyone around you miserable, and eventually die a wasted being.
I just hope my sons can make a living AND be happy with what they do every day of their lives. But it does take time to figure it out.
Hopefully we all do. It’d be a much happier world.