Clearly, I wasn’t part of the 1% of the population who are passionate about what they do. Despite the good moments, the landing of new clients, and the eventual creation of a beautiful piece, there was often a desire to do something different.
Yes, my work had some good moments, as yours may have. And those moments were precisely what, for a while, fooled me to believe I liked what I was doing. It’s easy to confuse the enjoyment of financial achievements, promotions, and recognition with really enjoying what one does for a living. It works like this: you receive your paycheck, or you close a deal, or deliver a project to a client and get paid for it. You become happy with that financial achievement and, over time, your brain begins to associate happiness with completing the kind of tasks you do at work. And then we start to confuse the nature of our profession with pleasure, like a Pavlov’s dog salivating to the wrong bell.
We transform ourselves in a Mutley, asking for medals.
That’s why the ultimate test to find out if we really like what we do is to ask ourselves: “Would I do exactly what I do even if I didn’t earn any money for doing it?” or “Would I dedicate myself to something else, a hobby, a passion if I have all the money I need?” The logic here is that people who really enjoy going to the movies are willing to spend their money to watch a movie. People who love a particular band will gladly pay to see their concert. But the truth is that today, most people would not continue to do what they do if it weren’t for the money. Most of them wouldn’t even do it for free, let alone pay for it. The problem is that selling our freedom, our time, mind, and body to clients or bosses primarily for money seems less like a passion and more like prostitution.
Hobbes (the philosopher, not the tigger) was the first to write about our contracts with one another, giving up our freedom to do what we want with our days. He wrote primarily about the agreements we make with governments, willing to follow some rules for the greater good. But years later, his ideas became the foundation of our professional life: about how we give up our days to benefit a company in exchange for some money.
Today we sell our freedom, our time, mind, and body in exchange for money, protection, and status. This exchange goes back at least to the feudal period when the royalty provided the security of a walled city in exchange for us peasants working part-time for them. Back then, following orders in exchange for the safety against barbarians’ invasion. And today, following orders in exchange for the security of a paycheck.
And just as slavery could be seen as the sale of one person’s freedom to another, today’s work in exchange for monthly money can be seen as the rent of our freedom – by ourselves.
It means we basically have evolved from slavery, where people were forced to do what others told them for fear of being beaten or killed, to today, where people feel obligated to do what their bosses, customers, and the economy want for fear of becoming poor.
Another thing that made me reluctant to change my life was the sunk cost of it all. You may relate. I had spent so many years doing the same thing. After years in college, after several internships, and after so many sacrifices, I didn’t want to ask myself if I was really enjoying myself in my profession. Or if that’s what I wanted to do most of my time here on earth.
It didn’t seem like a rational decision to drop everything. But I learned that rationality is, in most cases, fear disguised as wisdom.
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