(2006-01-19) Graham Do What You Love

Paul Graham on doing what you love (Meaning Of Life).

• *(Kids have) been told three lies: (the truth is) the stuff they've been taught to regard as work in school (Educating Kids) is not real work; grownup work is not (necessarily) worse than schoolwork; and many of the adults around them are lying when they say they like what they do... If you think something's supposed to hurt, you're less likely to notice if you're doing it wrong...

• The rule about doing what you love assumes a certain length of time. It doesn't mean, do what will make you happiest this second, but what will make you happiest over some longer period, like a week or a month. Unproductive pleasures pall eventually. After a while you get tired of lying on the beach. If you want to stay happy (Authentic Happiness), you have to do something... To be happy I think you have to be doing something you admire... What there has to be is a test. There is automatically when you make anything (D And D)-- the test of how it comes out-- but there's also a definite test in learning to hang glide or learning a language... One thing that falls just short of the standard, I think, is reading books... I think the best test is to try to do things that would make your friends say wow... What you should not do, I think, is worry about the opinion of anyone beyond your friends. You shouldn't worry about prestige... The danger is when money is combined with prestige, as in, say, corporate law, or medicine... The test of whether people love what they do is whether they'd do it even if they weren't paid for it-- even if they had to work at another DayJob to make a living...

• It's not a sign there's something wrong with you if you have trouble finding the work you love, any more than it is if you're out of breath climbing a 30% grade. In fact, if you admit to yourself that you're discontented, you're a step ahead of most people, who are still in denial... Jumping from one sort of work to another is an odd thing. Sometimes it's a sign of discipline, and sometimes it's a sign of laziness.Is there some test you can use to keep yourself honest? One is to try to do a good job at whatever you're doing, even if you don't like it... Another test you can use is: always produce... The two-job route is less common than the organic route, because it requires a deliberate choice. It's also more dangerous... Perhaps more important than the question of which route to take is when to decide which route to take... When you're young, you're given the impression that you'll get enough information to make each choice before you need to make it. But this is certainly not so with work... Unless you're fairly sure what you want to do, your best bet may be to choose a type of work that will allow you to delay deciding whether to take the organic or two-job route... Another question to consider is which route will give you the best chance to learn what you like. The only way to learn what a job is really like is to do it. So a job that lets you work at many different things is good not just because you can push it in many different directions, but because you can learn faster which direction you want to push it in.*