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Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Make some love. Earn some living.



Do what you love...for me, is a bad career advice.
How many times we find ourselves saying it to other people?
How many times have we been fed with that cliche?
Too many to count, I guess.  It has become an integrated part of our growing up.
Our seniors would often highlight their success by saying they have succeeded because they are doing what they love.  Don't believe them.  They are successful because they are good at what they do.

And no, they are no more lucky than you are.

Thing is, we are complicated, multi-faceted, and our interest shifts as time goes by.
We do not only love one thing. 
We love a lot of things.  
And how do we know what it is that we love for sure?
We love in different ways.  
We love accordingly.  
we love simultaneously.  
We don't deliberate and assess ourselves why we love.  
We just do.  

and to choose one thing that we love as a career can have its problems.  
Say, sex and food.  Our love for the two is something we all share.  

We love sex.  
We do it, but we do not get paid for it -except for the professionals.  
And would you want to be one? 

In my case, I'd have to lose a lot of pounds which means I must starve myself one way or another.  I'm not good at that, I get grumpy when I am hungry.  
Customers don't like grumpy service providers. 
And  I love to eat... I love sweets, cutting my sugar high is just downright suicidal. 
Dead service provider are never hired.

And we are more than our love for sex (and of any other things we value)...at least I think I am...I hope you feel the same way too.  And even if the sex industry sounds promising, not all of us who loves it are good at it.  

And how can you make a career of something that you are not good at?   
I tried and I downright failed miserably.  I love food and don't ask me how many times I tried learning how to cook. I just suck.  Period.  I almost put my mom's kitchen on fire which is no kitchen anyway (I'm too clever to use my own kitchen hehe).  And looking at people's reactions over my cooking is just not good for the ego and self-esteem.  

We love sex and we love food but we intermittently love them because we also love other things.  
We don't jump into bed with someone because the opportunity presents itself nor do we eat every food offered to us.  We choose partners and we select food.  We create choices and love in categories.   
In some instances, we restrain.  And it's crazy but sometimes, not giving in to something we love to do has its own satisfaction.

So get over the fact that if you don't do the things you love, you won't be happy.  
That is just bull.  
If that is true, try gluttoning on sex and food for a month without a break.  That should ensure one month of straight happiness. But you know what's gonna happen.  You'd lose your mind.   You'd feel miserable.  The things you hate, suddenly you crave just to break the monotony.  By this time, you'd do anything...just anything to get away from it. 

Why is it a problem to do the things you love as a career again?
It is impossible to do all the things you love.
If you still insist, I think, it would be a long unending career search. Try forever.

A career, like marriage obliges you to become loyal.
It requires you spend time with it and you are not allowed not find another mistress.  Companies call it, conflict of interest.Otherwise, it bitches and makes you feel incompetent. It asks for your devotion and once you give it, it opens up unending opportunities for you.  And if you love so many things, monogamy might be a little too heavy for you to handle.  You can only cheat on your partner for so long before one catches you and send you back to hell where you came from. (ok I made that up -- the where you came from part...ehehe.  Regardless, you are going to hell.)


A career is successful if one is consistent in building it and thus, the foundation of your career must first be consistent-- meaning a career should have a solid base.  
Love may be a many splendored thing but it is not consistent and neither can we count on it as solid.  
Simple, we change our minds and we project love in many ways.  
Love requires us to be creative and dynamic.  
Love pushes us to be experimental.  
Love loves to shake our stability.  
Yes, it sounds all exciting, but you have to remind yourself that your job is not to keep you excited, it is to provide you an earning.  
We cannot change our career every so often every time our love for something dies. 

I'm not saying get a job you hate.  That is insane.

I'm saying working is not about a matter of doing what you love most, but a question of what you are great at.  I tried doing a project before because I love doing programs that can help communities.  But the problem is, that certain project requires a certain expertise in the medical field that I do not have.  I cannot relate.  
My degree in philosophy did not help either.  
I tried studying but it made me feel constricted and all the more confused. 
Helpless is the word, misunderstood is second, Inefficient is the third.  
It's like fitting a large foot in a small shoe.  
All you get is frustration.  My love for helping did not cease but it did not make me effective either.

However if you build on your strengths and you develop it, you are sure to get somewhere.  
A career is something we do to get rewarded.  Love expects no reward.

Love serves a different purpose in our lives.
Don't ask that it pay your rent, buy you food, and get you a car.  Love is too good for that.

And because Love is too snobby to get us our selfish desires of luxury, Career is there to balance it out ---because Loving cannot put food on the table, Career is there to make sure you eat.  No, they don't work against eachother.  In fact they compliment, Career makes sure you are alive so that you can Love effectively.

Our career is just part of us, it is not our life. 
A job is still a job. At the end of the day, it is our relationships that shape the greatness of our lives.

But having a career you are good at is just as important as loving.  A career gives you a sense of being valued in monetary form and/or how you contribute to the society.  It can also be fulfilling because having a good career means paying the bills and giving yourself and your family the luxury money can afford.  How we do our job, whether we follow structure or not, is how the society calibrate our value.  That's why we appreciate people who are great in their fields...

You don't get paid doing what you love.
Regardless of what you say, you are not getting paid because you love it.
You are getting paid because you can pull the job off.
Know the difference.  
The moment you slack and someone outperforms you, your love for the job might help you strive to develop your skills and become better so as not to lose it.  
But at the end of the day, it's still whether you are able to deliver or not.  

So instead of saying, do what you love, why don't we say, do what you are good at and love it.  Putting your strengths as the primary requirement on choosing a career instead of putting what you want to do first.  

And stop looking for the perfect career.  You are not that special.  Yes you have your moments but you are just like everybody else.  It is only fair that you get your share of annoying managers, hard-to-deal-with-clients, Bosses-from-hell, and the satanic cult to bring some misfortune to your perfect life.

20 comments:

Ria Jose said...

Nalulurkey ako sa post na ito. Ang agang pang piga ng utaaaak.

13thwitch said...

Awts ^.^

Brendel said...

Grabe! Pagkagwapa!

Mero mas appealing for me ang chichirya.Hehe

13thWiTCh said...

bagay ba nga tindera. emoterang tindera ^.^

Boned said...

sa dihang gi inglis!

But liked it, not that I can relate but yeah. We don't die just because we restrain.

We get a funeral...and a memorial...

13thWiTCH said...

@boned - amen.

Unknown said...

Sex and food are different things, but life needs it. A learned a lot from this post.

And you give me idea, by not forcing the dreams which is impossible to achieve.. It would be a waste of time and effort. thank you for sharing your thoughts..

Greg Roberts said...

A wonderful post. Loving and being loved as a confirmation and a valuation in ourselves and our partners. The day to day stresses we all face in our careers, whether our "chosen" path or one that we are on until "something better" comes along are all easier to shoulder because of our safe haven, our shared love. The stressful within a given career is also made less burdensome when we know that what we earn provide shelter and sustenance to our family. Providing for ones family makes even a terrible job worth doing well.(In the old days this investment in food and shelter was repaid by the young and constantly hungry when they grew into adulthood. These days that isn't as much of an expectation or requirement. Are we stupid or what?)

Learning, improving, practicing and refining what we do makes us into experts. 10,000 hours! The Beatles weren't the Fab Four until they had worked it, played it, learned it and earned their "instant fame".

Thank God for Love, I thank God for you, being loved, being in love, it makes the 10,000 hours a joy. Do what we do better and best!

13thWiTCH said...

@tim - yes food and sex are both different but we share a common interest in it. we both love the two =)
thank you for the comment tim =) i am glad you find the post worth reading.

13thWiTCH said...

@greg - yes! i forgot that! 10,000 hours. after practicing 10,000 hours, you become an expert in the field! thus consistency needed! =)

The Girl In Red Stilettos said...

great post! pwede mag-make love and then get paid? hahaha!

seriously though, i'm at my best when i love what i do! i've tried to work on something for financial compensation's sake but it just didn't work for me.

13thWiTCH said...

@Liam - it just so happened you are good at what you love to do =) that is very fortunate =)

Julienne said...

Thank you! I'll have something to think about over the holidays =)

13thWiTCH said...

hi julienne, thanks for dropping by =) I'm glad the post inspired some ^.^

Rene-Caparas said...

"Do what you love" is an aphorism for "Do what you are good at." Abraham Maslow's theory on love, hunger, and self-realization indicates a hierarchy of needs-fullfilment, hence, having sex and food for a straight month won't happen if we follow the Maslow rule; other higher needs will come in after satisfying the current ones. Carl Marx's value-ladden theory on labor and commodity sounds evident in your theses; so with Friedrich Nietzsche's theory on things we value, or those he calls "Beyond Good and Evil". Your scholarly background echoes in every sentences. "At the end of the day" is a British lingo made famous by Lee Kuan Yew, and is slowly creeping in the academe and net literature. Just like the German romaticism of the ideal, your dialectics on love and sex and food and career are open ended. The reader is free to chose which is preferable by giving them options which you never choose which one.

13thWiTCH said...

somebody is doing research =)
Utilitarian Philosophy would imply pleasure. but pleasure has its own gradation.

love, sex, career, can be enjoyed on a higher plane than the physical. It's the manifestation of life in our lives that differs thus the gradation of pleasure and fulfillment differs as well =)

P.S. at the end of the day phrase is actually going out...in the brink of passe as they say it.

happy new year rene ^.^

Rene Caparas said...

You have a natural bent for words,thoughts and ideas; what we belabor at school comes to you in an instant without prodding and with much ease: Your creative juices are spontaneous but critically restrained. This is what Friedrich Nietzsche called "The Eternal Feminine." Your "utilitarian" phenomenology is valid but it seems you're raising the ante of your logic to the edge of the ascetic; like the Zen Buddhists. In the end, (I hate to say at the end of the day,since a day never ends) our thoughts will linger on nothingness, the root of all philosophies. Your thoughts are marvelous and your prose is awesome. Have you not been a girl, you could be a great man. Again,this gender bias; a point of much contradictions: Enough, enough. [Notice the punctuations, I borrowed it from Nietszche, a sequence of comma, semicolon,a colon. This classic punctuations put order on Nietszche's thoughts evident in his "The Genealogy of Morals", "The Gay Science", "The Birth of the Tragedy", and "The Anti-Christ".] I hope I could write as beautiful as you do. I remain,

Your fan.

13thWiTCH said...

Thank you for the kind words rene =)

Trixter said...

hey you. small world. my friend Rene (who appears to 've been captured by your piece) recommended your blog site. So this is your high. Keep at it!

13thWiTCH said...

estong! hey you. saw you lens. and im green with envy =P thanks for visiting.