I enjoy my job, I get to do fun stuff, and generally look forward to going to work. Then I come home and program too, for personal projects.
This gets back to my original question of what people mean when they say they ‘love their job’. I’m reasonably well paid and work on reasonably interesting problems and there are certainly worse jobs. I sometimes enjoy aspects of my work and / or get a sense of satisfaction from them. But ‘love’ seems like a completely inappropriate word for something I would walk away from and never look back if I won the lottery tomorrow.
If I won the lottery tomorrow, I’d start a small game company, keep programming on the interesting bits and hire people to do the boring stuff or the stuff I’m not as good at.
Considering I never even played the lottery, that seems pretty unlikely, but still—I wouldn’t want to stop working on cool nifty stuff, unless it was to work on something cooler and niftier.
I love my job so much that if I won the lottery, I would keep doing it too, and I would hire people to do the boring stuff which doesn’t uniquely require me.
Yet, not having won the lottery, it remains the case that, at this job I love SO MUCH that I would keep doing it if I won the lottery, there are many subgoals and tasks which are boring, which aren’t shiny and interesting enough to draw my attention naturally, and which I must force myself to do. And if I don’t do them, my organization will proceed more slowly or not at all.
So to be more effective at this job I love, I either need to win the lottery, or I need to strength my attention-directing muscle.
But ‘love’ seems like a completely inappropriate word for something I would walk away from and never look back if I won the lottery tomorrow.
I think that’s apt, and I think that the people who love their jobs (like Emile) do not fit that description. I haven’t yet held a job that I love. I am, though, studying to enter a field of work that, if I won the lottery, I would still want to work in, because I’m passionate about it. There exist jobs that I would love.
If you still don’t think it’s possible to love your work, what would you do if you won the lottery? Sit on the couch playing video games all day? I doubt it—at least after the first year. Doing nothing, as it turns out, gets really boring after a while, especially for people with curious minds. (This is one of the premises of unschooling; I don’t remember which specific book I read it in, or I’d link it.) You’d find something to do that interested or excited you. Odds are, there’s work to be had which relates to that something. It has the potential to be work that you love.
But I suspect that at least one of us is generalizing from a single example. Either you have not had a job that you loved and are thus assuming that such a thing is impossible, or I am naive and optimistic and don’t understand what appears to me to be cynicism.
If you still don’t think it’s possible to love your work, what would you do if you won the lottery? Sit on the couch playing video games all day? I doubt it—at least after the first year.
Nope, not at all. I’ve got plenty of things I’d do with sufficient free time and resources. None of them that I’ve yet figured out how to get anyone to pay me enough to cover my living expenses though. The reason I work is primarily to fund the things I actually want to do.
This gets back to my original question of what people mean when they say they ‘love their job’. I’m reasonably well paid and work on reasonably interesting problems and there are certainly worse jobs. I sometimes enjoy aspects of my work and / or get a sense of satisfaction from them. But ‘love’ seems like a completely inappropriate word for something I would walk away from and never look back if I won the lottery tomorrow.
If I won the lottery tomorrow, I’d start a small game company, keep programming on the interesting bits and hire people to do the boring stuff or the stuff I’m not as good at.
Considering I never even played the lottery, that seems pretty unlikely, but still—I wouldn’t want to stop working on cool nifty stuff, unless it was to work on something cooler and niftier.
I love my job so much that if I won the lottery, I would keep doing it too, and I would hire people to do the boring stuff which doesn’t uniquely require me.
Yet, not having won the lottery, it remains the case that, at this job I love SO MUCH that I would keep doing it if I won the lottery, there are many subgoals and tasks which are boring, which aren’t shiny and interesting enough to draw my attention naturally, and which I must force myself to do. And if I don’t do them, my organization will proceed more slowly or not at all.
So to be more effective at this job I love, I either need to win the lottery, or I need to strength my attention-directing muscle.
I think that’s apt, and I think that the people who love their jobs (like Emile) do not fit that description. I haven’t yet held a job that I love. I am, though, studying to enter a field of work that, if I won the lottery, I would still want to work in, because I’m passionate about it. There exist jobs that I would love.
If you still don’t think it’s possible to love your work, what would you do if you won the lottery? Sit on the couch playing video games all day? I doubt it—at least after the first year. Doing nothing, as it turns out, gets really boring after a while, especially for people with curious minds. (This is one of the premises of unschooling; I don’t remember which specific book I read it in, or I’d link it.) You’d find something to do that interested or excited you. Odds are, there’s work to be had which relates to that something. It has the potential to be work that you love.
But I suspect that at least one of us is generalizing from a single example. Either you have not had a job that you loved and are thus assuming that such a thing is impossible, or I am naive and optimistic and don’t understand what appears to me to be cynicism.
Nope, not at all. I’ve got plenty of things I’d do with sufficient free time and resources. None of them that I’ve yet figured out how to get anyone to pay me enough to cover my living expenses though. The reason I work is primarily to fund the things I actually want to do.