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splendid_seasonRepost of an essay written by my twin brother, Karlo:
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Success, Grit, Sacrifice, and Not Doing What You Love
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Success, Grit, Sacrifice, and Not Doing What You Love
What makes a person successful in their own eyes and in the eyes of others? Is success a high-paying job? Recognition and respect from one’s peers? Being one’s own boss? Being able to do what one loves? How should we measure professional success in this day and age? These are some of the questions that spring up when I think about the tired platitude “Do what you love”, and the elevation of “Do what you love” as the greatest value to which a professional or employee can aspire. While doing what one loves is certainly a wonderful thing, there is a real danger in presenting this particular type of self-fulfillment as the peak towards each working person is striving.
Miya Tokumitsu wisely pointed out that this kind of ethos, revolving entirely around self-curated bucket lists and desires, degrades actual, anonymous, atomic, unglamorous work, work that in all likelihood makes “Do what you love” possible for those lucky enough to be in a position to do so. “Do what you love” thus is inherently elitist, creating an impulse to pursue activities that one loves as vocation, to the exclusion of things that, while not loved, may create actual, undiminished value for persons and communities. We are told: “Do what you love, and what you do will not be work.” But there is something wonderful about earnest work itself, as the point of convergence of talent, exertion, and duty. There is at the core of dedicated work a kind of selfless love that deserves recognition as well. Passion is one thing, but our needs, and the material circumstances we find ourselves in, and the constraints imposed by reality are part of the discussion as well.
Sometimes, doing what one loves is simply not a tenable option, but that doesn’t mean that foregoing our passions to “Do what needs to be done” is any less worthwhile an endeavor. In fact, doing what needs to be done, which in many cases will involve putting aside some of our desires and passions, may very well reveal a greater capacity for love than “Do what you love” ever could.
