Doing What You Love Is Not an Easy Task

The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss, but that it is too low and we reach it.

- Michelangelo

We are all aware of Steve Jobs Stanford commencement address given in 2005, where he talks about doing what you love. It is a classic on this subject. He encourages his student audience to keep looking and don’t settle. Jobs goes on to say as with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. Ah, but finding it.

To do something well you have to like it. That idea is not exactly novel. We’ve got it down to four words: “Do what you love.” But it’s not enough just to tell people that. Doing what you love is complicated.

Constraints give your life shape. Remove them and most people have no idea what to do: look at what happens to those who win lotteries or inherit money. Much as everyone thinks they want financial security, the happiest people are not those who have it, but those who like what they do.

So a plan that promises freedom at the expense of knowing what to do with it may not be as good as it seems.

Whichever route you take, expect a struggle.

Finding work you love is very difficult. Most people fail. Even if you succeed, it’s rare to be free to work on what you want till your thirties or forties.

But if you have the destination insight you’ll be more likely to arrive at it.

If you know you can love work, you’re in the home stretch, and if you know what work you love, you’re practically at the doorstep of doing what you love.