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Do What You Love

Started by LMNO, January 17, 2014, 04:07:21 PM

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Nephew Twiddleton

And I'm doing it so I can be an adult. To get a Bachelors. To get a Masters at worst and PhD at best. To marry my woman. To buy an abode. To create Twillagers that will annoy the crap out of me and Villager, but I will nevertheless dote on. To miss me when I'm gone forever. To do what I am supposed to. Not what I love, even though what I love has some overlap with this.

That's not doing what I love. The only doing what I love involved there is 9 months prior to the Twillagers.
Strange and Terrible Organ Laminator of Yesterday's Heavy Scene
Sentence or sentence fragment pending

Soy El Vaquero Peludo de Oro

TIM AM I, PRIMARY OF THE EXTRA-ATMOSPHERIC SIMIANS

Left

#76
I think nobody dreams about swabbing toilets for a living. Or working in a nursing home.  Nobody dreams of picking up roadkill, or of growing up to be a septic-tank pumper or a garbage collector.

Some jobs are not very lovable, but really need doing anyway....and a lot of the jobs that ARE lovable are very highly competitive because a whole LOT of people want to do them.

I think that it's possible to find a sense of purpose in just about any job. But that doesn't mean you love the job you have to do for a paycheck...
And maybe the ideal that everyone should do what they love is either based in naivete...

...Or worse, in treating the toilet swabbers, butt-wipers, garbage collectors, mess removers, burger-slingers, shelf-stockers and all the other assorted humans who labor at crappy little jobs as if they don't really exist. 
Because for some social strata, maybe they don't really exist, you know?

Mental blinders that the well-off and privileged wear to remain in their little privileged la-la land where everyone CAN do what they love, instead of swabbing other people's feces out of public toilets and such.
Because people of that ilk, the well-off, don't always want to look at what reality is really like, otherwise they might realize how not everyone can do it, how privileged they are.  It makes it ever so much easier to ignore the injustices that benefit them and pretend everybody can arrange to do jobs they love.

...*Whew*...
I think that all made sense.  Cutting back on the caffeine ATM.  Maybe repeating the original article too much.

Still, if you are able to find meaning and enjoyment in what you have to do anyway, this is a good thing. 

Hope was the thing with feathers.
I smacked it with a hammer until it was red and squashy

Nephew Twiddleton

I think I know what you mean.

I work in a lab. I don't do fun lab stuff. I clean up data. It's boring. It's unfulfilling. I hate my job. My job is important. And at the end of the night I don't have to clean the urinals or empty the trash. Which is also an important job.

But both jobs, while my position is preferable are still mediocre jobs.

The reasons why I chose biology were along these lines:
I work in epidemiology for a hospital. Hospital will reimburse me for a grand in tuition related to life science for a fiscal year.
The community college I go to has a transfer program with UMass, where all credits transfer.
It's a hard science, which has a good return on investment.
Boston is known for biotech specifically and biology in general. I'm already here, and hope to remain a Masshole.
I want to be a productive member of society, and I want to help my species achieve something greater.

But even biology is a compromise. Given my druthers, if I could be any scientist I wanted to be, I would be an astrophysicist. That interests me more, but is more academic, and less practical, and more competitive. I would have to go to school in New York and intern in Arizona, probably.
Strange and Terrible Organ Laminator of Yesterday's Heavy Scene
Sentence or sentence fragment pending

Soy El Vaquero Peludo de Oro

TIM AM I, PRIMARY OF THE EXTRA-ATMOSPHERIC SIMIANS

Nephew Twiddleton

Don't get me wrong, I actually really like Biology, and find it extremely interesting.

But my head has always been offworld, with some heavy music set to it, and it will always be that way. I will always choose to read an article about black holes or the latest discovered exoplanet over an article over a new species of bug or frog. Well, I'll read both, but I'm going to read one of them first.
Strange and Terrible Organ Laminator of Yesterday's Heavy Scene
Sentence or sentence fragment pending

Soy El Vaquero Peludo de Oro

TIM AM I, PRIMARY OF THE EXTRA-ATMOSPHERIC SIMIANS

Nephew Twiddleton

Best of both worlds, no pun intended:

We figure out practical interstellar travel in my lifetime, find life in a system within a couple of light years away, send me on a survey expedition as a blue shirt, I come back to Earth in 6 to 9 months and do a little of heavy duty Terran biology on Villager.

I would totally sign up for that.
Strange and Terrible Organ Laminator of Yesterday's Heavy Scene
Sentence or sentence fragment pending

Soy El Vaquero Peludo de Oro

TIM AM I, PRIMARY OF THE EXTRA-ATMOSPHERIC SIMIANS

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: hylierandom, A.D.D. on January 25, 2014, 06:54:12 AM
I think nobody dreams about swabbing toilets for a living. Or working in a nursing home.  Nobody dreams of picking up roadkill, or of growing up to be a septic-tank pumper or a garbage collector.

Some jobs are not very lovable, but really need doing anyway....and a lot of the jobs that ARE lovable are very highly competitive because a whole LOT of people want to do them.

I think that it's possible to find a sense of purpose in just about any job. But that doesn't mean you love the job you have to do for a paycheck...
And maybe the ideal that everyone should do what they love is either based in naivete...

...Or worse, in treating the toilet swabbers, butt-wipers, garbage collectors, mess removers, burger-slingers, shelf-stockers and all the other assorted humans who labor at crappy little jobs as if they don't really exist. 
Because for some social strata, maybe they don't really exist, you know?

Mental blinders that the well-off and privileged wear to remain in their little privileged la-la land where everyone CAN do what they love, instead of swabbing other people's feces out of public toilets and such.
Because people of that ilk, the well-off, don't always want to look at what reality is really like, otherwise they might realize how not everyone can do it, how privileged they are.  It makes it ever so much easier to ignore the injustices that benefit them and pretend everybody can arrange to do jobs they love.

...*Whew*...
I think that all made sense.  Cutting back on the caffeine ATM.  Maybe repeating the original article too much.

Still, if you are able to find meaning and enjoyment in what you have to do anyway, this is a good thing.

That did make perfect sense, and was a large part of the gist of the article, I think.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Left

Repeating it too much then.

I have the attention span of a goldfish.
Hope was the thing with feathers.
I smacked it with a hammer until it was red and squashy

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Random anger problem on January 26, 2014, 01:09:17 AM
Repeating it too much then.

I have the attention span of a goldfish.

No, I think it's OK, because it seems like a lot of people kind of missed that point.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: President Television on January 25, 2014, 03:04:09 AM
I agree with Nigel and Roger, and I don't think they're actually contradicting each other if I'm interpreting them correctly. I agree with Roger that it's good to enjoy your work, but I also agree with Nigel that we should neither feel obligated to follow our dreams, nor impose that obligation on others. I think the real enemy here is arbitrary social pressure and shame over details of our lives that ultimately don't hurt anyone else.

I agree entirely with this statement.  I think there's been a bit of shouting past each other, here.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Random anger problem on January 25, 2014, 06:54:12 AM
...Or worse, in treating the toilet swabbers, butt-wipers, garbage collectors, mess removers, burger-slingers, shelf-stockers and all the other assorted humans who labor at crappy little jobs as if they don't really exist. 
Because for some social strata, maybe they don't really exist, you know?


There's no maybe.

I occasionally am forced into dealing with the sort of asshole who thinks owning a Porshe is the first qualifying step to being a human being.

They're as bad as they seem.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Dirty Old Uncle Roger on January 26, 2014, 06:57:48 AM
Quote from: President Television on January 25, 2014, 03:04:09 AM
I agree with Nigel and Roger, and I don't think they're actually contradicting each other if I'm interpreting them correctly. I agree with Roger that it's good to enjoy your work, but I also agree with Nigel that we should neither feel obligated to follow our dreams, nor impose that obligation on others. I think the real enemy here is arbitrary social pressure and shame over details of our lives that ultimately don't hurt anyone else.

I agree entirely with this statement.  I think there's been a bit of shouting past each other, here.

Yeah, I think you're right.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

At the same time, I also agree with the article in the OP that there is a toxic element to the "DO WHAT YOU LOVE" meme, because it implies that all you need for success is to do what you love, and is fundamentally Calvinist in nature.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


LMNO

To completely miss the point of the article, I am doing what I love.


I just don't get paid for it.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Nigel's Red Velveteen Skinmeat Snacks on January 27, 2014, 05:41:44 AM
At the same time, I also agree with the article in the OP that there is a toxic element to the "DO WHAT YOU LOVE" meme, because it implies that all you need for success is to do what you love, and is fundamentally Calvinist in nature.

Well, a Calvinist would say that you are doing what you are doing because God willed it to be that way, and that if you don't make shit doing it, then it's because you're not of The Elect, and God is giving all the money to people he likes better than you.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Cain

I'd be more interested in the article had teased out the class difference in "doing what you love"/creative careers and others.

Because, I remember back in 2008, in one of the Democratic Party's interminable rounds of blood-letting was the fight between the self-declared "creative classes" - who tended to be more neoliberal in their economics, less concerned with economic injustice, more pro-Obama and more concerned with social issues in comparison with the self-declared working classes, who were highly focused on the economic issues of the campaign, and fell more into the Hillary camp.

I have no way to evaluate those claims in regards to class at the time, except to note those bloggers who did work in better compensated careers (which would seem to fall more under the "do what you love" ethos than, say working retail) were correspondingly much less concerned with economic justice overall.