“Do what you love, and you will never work a day in your life.”
“…and the greatest of these is love.”
“Love the one you’re with (little pop culture there).”
I have quoted three, and know there are many more, popular anecdotes about love. While their original intent may have been different when written, I believe that we can take the latter two and apply them to the first. What does it mean to love your work? Furthermore, does doing what you love truly mean you will never work a day in your life? If you take what you love, turn it into your source of income, won’t it then become work?
I am going to attempt, by using the other quotes, to help clarify the first message. Before doing that, let’s walk through a definition of work; what it feels like in the day-to-day grind, the relationship we often develop toward that which we do to create financial stability, the meaning we give to our whole life based on that source, etc.
Work: the effort applied to produce a deliverable or accomplish a task; measure of the work done by human beings; (physics), the work done by, or energy transferred by, a force acting through a distance. Alright, so there are some definitions for work. Interesting words appear here… effort…measure…produce…accomplish…force. I am exhausted from reading this! How can anything defined by these terms be pleasant, let alone lovable? Do this for the rest of your life? You will NEVER feel as if you are working, as long as love is tossed into the mix of terms?
In my experience, work mode is the term I use to define times when I divorce that which I am doing from that which I choose to do. In other words, I unplug and simply go through the motions. The result is a feeling of dissatisfaction, sometimes even melancholy. I begin to question everything. Next step: I begin to really experience the pain coming from the disconnect, and subsequently begin putting off the things I want to accomplish. Thus begins the self-defeating negativity spiral… So that, to me is ‘work’ without engaging (or being able to engage) love.
So, a logical next step may be to define love.
Love: an emotion of a strong affection and personal attachment; a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection; In English, love refers to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from pleasure (“I loved that meal”) to interpersonal attraction (“I love my partner”). “Love” may refer specifically to the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love, to the sexual love of eros, to the emotional closeness of familial love, to the platonic love that defines friendship,[4] or to the profound oneness or devotion of religious love[5], or to a concept of love that encompasses all of those feelings. This diversity of uses and meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, compared to other emotional states.
When I am in love with something (yes, I believe it is relatively the same with interpersonal relationships), I can hardly wait to get to it. I find myself practicing constantly. I find myself picking up or researching methods, recordings, and terminology. I lose track of ME and become a part of something much bigger. In that place, I feel joy, a sense of thriving, and a desire to explore and play. If I encounter something that needs to be managed in order to produce the desired outcome, I do not hesitate diving in and doing so. The love I feel for what I desire makes the ‘work’, by definition, seem more like play.
Overkill? Perhaps… but let’s cut to the chase on this. Obviously, some of the definitions of love are not applicable when exploring the relationship between love and work…unless office romances abound where you are, in which case, bonne chance! However, I think the concept of love as an all-encompassing tool may be helpful. When we love something, it is not always pleasant. In relationships, love can inspire pain, anger, frustration, jealousy, even hatred (albeit temporary). Might these terms also define how I feel about my career? If I need to answer this, you haven’t been reading…
In my experience, my love for the art of opera and singing is strong enough to envelop those times when it begins to feel like work. Here’s the kicker: I have been to the place as a singer where it felt like WORK. I was miserable (so were a lot of others…sorry about that), and had to take time to fall in love again with it. The thing is, singing is an enormous part of me… it is the most grand way in which I can express my innermost thoughts and feelings. To not sing would be, I feel, detrimental to my well-being. Does singing sometimes make me ache, angry, frustrated, jealous of others? Yes… it is a relationship that must be acknowledged as such. Does it call me to be bigger than I think I am able to be, at times? Yes, indeed. I have said this repeatedly in my posts: Singing is my Gift; it is a Calling that I must follow. In other words, singing is always with me, no matter how irritated I may be in a moment of weak-minded thinking. I guess I’d better love the one I am with…
In my own words, here is another rendition of the first quote: Participate fully in that which brings forth strong affection and emotions, and you will be willing to offer it all of the effort required to accomplish the task before you. You will do so without regret, because the emotional joy received from the accomplishment will far outweigh the moments requiring said effort.
So… do what you love and never work again? I would say yes, if you understand the relationship between love and work.
Well, back to what I love! Cheers!