Note: If you're unemployed, this post does not apply to you. I know that all you care about is finding a friggin' job and getting paid. I get it.
Steve Jobs did what he loved -- we know this because he gave a speech about it at Stanford University's commencement a few years ago stating just that and telling the graduates of Stanford to do the same. But what happens if you don't even know what you like? Then what do you do? Do you feel guilty for being passionless? Because listening to that speech can make anyone with a little less drive examine their lives and say, shit, I don't have a passion. I'm fucked.
I've always found that people ordering others to do what they love or suffer the consequences of regret were wrong to give that kind of advice. We can't all be Steve Jobs; people like him come once or twice in a lifetime. Yet, for all intents and purposes, he was telling people to be like him, be passionate about something and pursue it and reap the rewards of taking the risk. This is cop-out advice if you ask me. Actually this advice was clearly given by someone who didn't spend a lot of time thinking about other people. And that's fine, I never needed Steve Jobs to be my therapist, I just wanted him to make iPhones and iPads (and increase shareholder value). But because the speech was given by the God of Jobs, then it must be applicable, right? As a matter of fact, I can't think of anyone less qualified than him to tell me how to live my life (and I say this as a fan and stockholder). I understand he needed some content for the speech and figured these people are from Stanford so the chances that they are brilliant are high -- though probable, I find that most people who end up like Jobs don't initially come from the Elite, after all, technically speaking, I am part of the Elite 'shudder'. I get the gist of what he's saying, if you are passionate and fascinated by something, you will be excellent at it and feel fulfilled in life. And that is very true and undisputed, because most of the truly great people in this world have been chronicled by biographers who've all concluded that very fact, ad nauseum. Ok. Great.
But my personal objective is to do something I'm good at in a place that I love. Over the 12 years that I've been working, I've never known anyone to stay at a job because they loved the work even if they hated the people, but I have seen throngs of people leave jobs even if they liked the work because they hated the people. People matter. Go figure. I view the professional landscape as millions of mini (and some huge) cults scattered around the globe. It's important to choose your cult wisely and make sure you believe in that cult's leader and like its followers, along with its "core competency."
The other thing is, you don't need to have a passion for something in order to care about doing it well. I always felt that the relationship to one's job is like an arranged marriage -- when it's successful, you grow to love it, care about it, nurture and respect it. Sometimes you start liking something because you're doing it, not the other way around; you might land on something that you're good at by accident, it doesn't always have to start with a passion. Part of being successful at life is allowing yourself the flexibility to discover things you're good at slowly. What may have worked for Steve Jobs, doesn't necessarily apply to others. And it's kind of irresponsible to tell people it does, because most people are dumb and trust me when I say, you wouldn't want most people to follow their passion. It can take people years and years to understand what they like to do, through fits and starts, stops and starts, detours and deviations. And so what if that's the case? That can be fun too, the slow discovery of one's interests, the evolution of one's feelings for something just because they're open minded enough to let the path wind a bit. Most of us are not put on this earth to change the world. And there's no need for rigidity here, we all know where this is going to end.
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