This Paradigm About Doing What You Love To Do is Dangerous!
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Why is Doing What You Love Dangerous?
It is a very popular mindset that you find today.
Companies are constantly looking for people whose ‘passion lies in their work’ who ‘love their jobs and can commit 100% to what they’re doing.’
All that is great. For people with a certain level of discipline.
If we did what we love every single day and what we love is slacking rather than working, the world would collapse.
Everybody would slack and sleep/play computer games/read fantasy novels and comics/engage in promiscuous behavior regularly with every good-looking person we meet.
For a lot of people, what they like the most is the feeling of pleasure. I suspect that the ratio of those who prefer work over sensual pleasure is perhaps 10% of the entire world’s population or less.
For such people, what would be the result of doing nothing other than what you love?
Photo by Obi Onyeador on Unsplash
Would this be your diet for the entire meal?
What kind of effect would that have on your body and mind?
A deeply hedonistic existence has no place in professional life.
For professionals what matters are the result. At almost any cost.
Robin Sharma advocates the ‘live’ foods diet for long life, quality of thoughts and actions, and health at every level. Eat the following food alone, and your entire body will benefit at every level. This is the food:
Photo by Jakub Kapusnak on Unsplash
“Eat fresh fruits and vegetables, and you might just live forever.” (what he means is a life span of over 150 years)
From The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, by Robin Sharma.
And it really does work. Kudos, Robin Sharma, I’m a big fan.
But this is not what eating what you love means (do what you love, right?).
Eating what we love is causing the terrible appearances of obese, ill, socially unfit, psychotic, and junk food addicts.
Doing what we love — following our emotions — leading a life based on our feelings — is a recipe for disaster.
What should we do, then?
Master Your Mind, Do Not Let Your Mind Master You
This is a timeless secret of the ages. Og Mandino, in his book, The Greatest Salesman in the World, puts it this way.
Weak is he who allows his emotions to control him — strong is he who is the master over his mind.
From the Greatest Salesman in the World, by Og Mandino
We have no choice.
To gain a public victory in life — one must gain a private victory in disciplining ourselves.
In everything, discipline is the key.
Now discipline is never pleasurable, in fact, more often than not, it is boring/painful/irritating/repulsive/strict in its actions.
But the masters of life knew that without discipline, one gains nothing.
We need discipline and willpower over every other quality to obtain a goal — except maybe creativity and inspiration.
Mind over matter. Nothing else will work.
A strong sense of compassion and moral ethics is also essential.
So, if we are to be masters of our mind instead of our mind mastering us, what must we do?
Love What You Do
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash
Love What You Do And Do What You Love
I think that sums it up the best.
It is not by feelings that we love what we do.
It is a decision we take for the common good.
Suppose you’re a violinist. You love playing violin and you could do it all day. But if we just played melodies and songs we would never become experts.
To be a master of the violin, one must master scales. And practice open strings. Not placing a finger on the violin. Just an open string. For even up to 30 minutes at a time.
There are many who love the violin — but they hate the scale exercises.
Yet they overcome their distaste and practice every scale until they can play it in their sleep.
Playing scales well can be an art and it has a lovely practice of variations.
However, initially, it feels like saying your alphabets from A-Z 20 times in a row.
Is that something we love?
No!
But do we have to do that to master the violin?
Yes.
So violinists overcome their boredom and, putting mind over matter, practice scales for hours on end.
Photo by Larisa Birta on Unsplash
In fact Yehudi Menuhin, perhaps second only to Niccolo Paganini in his skill levels, once said:
“I have spent the better part of my entire life sitting on cushions, engaged in this activity of playing scales.”
In other words, he spent more hours playing scales than any other activity in his life.
And he is the greatest violinist that the 20th century has ever produced.
A very young Yehudi Menuhin
From Google Image Search
He hated doing scales as much as every other violinist.
Yet, he did more of them than anyone in his lifetime ever did.
Thus, his claim to greatness.
Thus, his acclaim; despite 400 years of violinists, he is regarded in many ways as one of the best of all time.
And thus —usually, there is no activity that is pleasurable except pleasure in a sensual sense — which is wasting your life and slacking.
If you want to make an impact in your career, regardless of what you do:
Love What You Do and Do What You Love.
Take a decision to commit to excellence, regardless of what you are doing.
Just don’t be a perfectionist or become a victim of OCD.
It is the decision we take to love the job that has been allotted to us that makes all the difference.
Once again Robin Sharma has a beautiful book that encapsulates the principles here, The Leader Who Had No Title.
I strongly recommend every Robin Sharma book you can buy.
You will reap rich rewards.
Consistently keep investing in yourself, making yourself better.
Reading Robin Sharma is one such activity.
No, no affiliate links here. Purely an expression of sheer admiration towards a great thought leader.
Take The Decision And Stick To It
Today — if your job is worth it — decide to love your job.
It’s a bit like marriage.
Emotions stop driving us after 2 years of marriage.
Then we see our partner in full glory.
No delusions, no illusions, just hard reality.
It is then that the actual marriage starts, a conscious, concrete decision to love without any conditions under normal circumstances.
We cannot rely on our feelings.
But we can choose to stick to our commitments, our decisions, and our jobs.
And life gives you what you give it — feed faithfulness, love, and joy into your job and the people around you and you will receive what you gave them for free, with interest.
Not all of us can be Yehudi Menuhin.
But every one of us, today, right now, can choose to live in the moment and love what we do.
And it is the decision — not the feeling — that makes the difference.
Keep living in the moment.
Believe in your dreams.
Fight for them.
And practice love as an elixir of life, that you can create out of the depths of your soul, this very moment.
Take a deep breath.
Feel the air within you.
Release it and repeat.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
And you will see, in the course of time as you develop mindfulness, that your job performance depends on your attitude much more than your aptitude.
Live deliberately. In the moment.
In all of history, there has never been a time like the present moment.
In all of history, there has never been an individual like you.
This moment is unique.
So are you.
One-of-a-kind.
You are unique.
Celebrate your uniqueness.
Practice mindfulness.
Love what you do and do what you love.
That is an excellent answer.
But it is the decision that counts.
Not the feelings, because they come and they go like the ocean tides.
Stick.
To.
Your.
Word.
Photo by Wesley Eland on Unsplash
Peace!
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