do what you love essay

How to Do What You Love: Notes from a Paul Graham Essay

It’s rare that I read an essay on Paul Graham’s website and don’t feel inspired or enlightened. There is much, much wisdom in his writing. For those that don’t know, Paul Graham is the co-founder of Y Combinator, a venture capital firm which is basically the Harvard of start-ups. He also seems like a decent chap.

In this post I would like highlight a few key ideas from his essay “How to Do What You Love”. If you get a chance, I would read the full piece, but if you’re short of time, this is for you.

Graham explores the peculiar mixed messages kids in western society receive growing up, for example that school is tedious because it is “preparation for growing up”…but at the same time you’re supposed to be able to “do anything”. He describes how as a kid, it is apparent that work adults do is not fun, though whenever an adult comes to school to give a talk they usually pretend otherwise:

The main reason they [adults] all acted as if they enjoyed their work was presumably the upper-middle class convention that you’re supposed to. It would not merely be bad for your career to say that you despised your job, but a social faux-pas.

Graham goes on to explain why people pretend to like their work by pointing out that to do something well, you have to like it. Hence the most successful people genuinely like what they do. People try to imitate those who are successful, and this explains the wide-spread pretending. This was a very interesting point to me, as I have often wondered about the fake smiles you see in soulless corporate jungles.

Add this into the mix and you have a weird cocktail (“recipe for alienation” –love it) as kids have been taught that work is awful and onerous…but everyone pretends to love their work. It’s almost Orwellian.

Next Graham explores the search for work:

How much are you supposed to like what you do? Unless you know that, you don’t know when to stop searching. And if, like most people, you underestimate it, you’ll tend to stop searching too early. You’ll end up doing something chosen for you by your parents, or the desire to make money, or prestige—or sheer inertia.

It seems to me that the mixed messages received since childhood contribute to the tendency to underestimate how much you’re supposed to like what you do.

Graham makes the key point that any discussion of doing what you love must assume a reasonable timeframe, like a month or a year.If you ask someone what they would rather be doing right now the answer is almost certainly having sex, or lying on a beach, or having sex again.

As a lower bound, you have to like your work more than any unproductive pleasure. You have to like what you do enough that the concept of “spare time” seems mistaken. Which is not to say you have to spend all your time working. You can only work so much before you get tired and start to screw up. Then you want to do something else—even something mindless. But you don’t regard this time as the prize and the time you spend working as the pain you endure to earn it.

The idea of “spare time” seeming mistaken really resonates with me. Since I first found a business idea I could really throw myself into, I’ve always spent my spare time working on it. I prefer to.

Graham cautions against two forces: prestige and money. Chasing prestige – i.e. the opinion of the rest of the world, is folly. This is of course easier said than done, prestige has great allure. However, I think Graham is absolutely right when he says: “If you do anything well enough, you’ll make it prestigious”.

Similarly, if you admire two kinds of work equally, but one is more prestigious, you should probably choose the other. Your opinions about what’s admirable are always going to be slightly influenced by prestige, so if the two seem equal to you, you probably have more genuine admiration for the less prestigious one.

When it comes to money, Graham issues the test: would you do what you do even if you weren’t paid for it? How many corporate lawyers can say “yes” to that? Such jobs (the kind parents like to talk loudly about their kids having) highlight the dangers of prestige combined with money. Parents will tend to counsel the path of money as they share risks more than rewards.

It’s hard to find work you love; it must be, if so few do. So don’t underestimate this task. And don’t feel bad if you haven’t succeeded yet. In fact, if you admit to yourself that you’re discontented, you’re a step ahead of most people, who are still in denial. If you’re surrounded by colleagues who claim to enjoy work that you find contemptible, odds are they’re lying to themselves. Not necessarily, but probably.

And now, perhaps the most important quote of the essay:

Although doing great work takes less discipline than people think—because the way to do great work is to find something you like so much that you don’t have to force yourself to do it—finding work you love does usually require discipline.

This is so true. When I think of the number of friends I have who don’t love what they do, and yet don’t make much effort to change their circumstances, I find it staggering. Why don’t they? Because it requires immense discipline. It is difficult.

But let’s say you take the plunge, and take some risks. The question then becomes: When are you boldly carving a new path, and when are you dropping out and giving up? Graham mentions two tests for keeping yourself honest:

Always do a good job at whatever you’re doing, even if you don’t like it – so you can’t use dissatisfaction as an excuse for giving up.
Always produce – be it writing, software or furniture. This will help you in your search.

Another related line you often hear is that not everyone can do work they love—that someone has to do the unpleasant jobs. Really? How do you make them? In the US the only mechanism for forcing people to do unpleasant jobs is the draft, and that hasn’t been invoked for over 30 years. All we can do is encourage people to do unpleasant work, with money and prestige.

Of course, it’s unlikely you will be able to do what you love right away. Graham argues there are basically two routes: work until you get senior enough to dictate which projects you work on, or have two jobs: one you do for money, the other because you love it – eventually you get good enough at the one you love so you can quit the one you do for money. The good news is, that with companies like kickstarter , you can start doing the one you love much faster.

In summary:

Kids are brought up under false pretenses about the nature of work, these pretenses have their origins in inept attempts to mimic successful people (e.g. pretending to like your work).
Realize that “loving your work” means enjoying it over a long period of time, of course there is something immediately gratifying you would prefer to be doing in the short term.
As a guideline, you have to like your work more than unproductive pleasure. Otherwise you’ll have to force yourself to work on your projects, and then they and you will suck.
Prestige is a dangerous trap and time-sink. Combine the offer of money with a little prestige, and you have an even more dangerous trap – especially for the young who have a small frame of reference, and have to contend with pressure from parents/friends.
If you admit to yourself you are not happy with your work, you are already on the right path.
Finding work you love requires immense discipline, once you have found it, it is surprisingly easy.
During your search always do a good job, and always be producing – this will help with your search.
Once you find what you love, you will probably have to work towards it – either by doing other paid work, or by climbing the ladder (e.g. if you’re a senior architect you can dictate which projects you work on).
Whichever route you take, expect to struggle.

If you don’t love what you do, then admit it to yourself. Don’t sugar coat it with excuses like ‘yeah, but the money is good’ or ‘yeah, but I don’t know what else I could do’ – because that is not the point. If you don’t love what you do, then it is STUPID to not spend every moment that you can trying to find something that you do love. The search is difficult and long. The decision to begin the search is not.

No matter who you are, or what your situation is, there is always a way.

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By Doing What You Love, Success Will Follow

“Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.” ~ Wayne Dyer

I always say to people: do what you love, follow your bliss, listen to your heart and intuition, and know that by doing so, success will have no choice but to follow you wherever you go.

Of course, when you get stuck in a job you don’t love, hearing words like: doing what you love, success, passion, etc. can be quite irritating.

I guess that’s because most of us live with this impression that we don’t really have control over our lives; over what happens to us; over our happiness and unhappiness. And that we are victims of a world that pushes us around.

But in truth, we do have a choice. We do have the power and ability to shift our lives in the right direction.

I promised that I will write a post on how to do what you love and still be able to pay your bills, and I will like to share with you all, some things that I have learned over the years from great teachers, people like Emerson , Henry David Thoreau , Lao Tzu , Rumi , Dale Carnegie , Wayne Dyer, and many, many others.

Doing what you love

First of all, I strongly believe… actually, I don’t believe, I know that we all have something unique and special about ourselves. What I have to share with the world, nobody else has.

But the same goes for you and all people.

What you have to offer no other person in the world has. These are our unique gifts and talents, the things we are born with. And if we choose to focus and work on them and with them, we will encounter success.

That’s how we achieve happiness, balance, and harmony in all areas of our lives.

This isn’t something I came up with overnight. No! It is a universal truth that every successful person who is doing what they love already know.

You want to be happy?

Work with love. Work with the things you are passionate about. And in doing so you will discover things about yourself you never dreamed were possible.

As I was writing this and as I was listening down these great teachers, all of these quotes started running through my mind, and I want to share with you a few of them, just so you can better understand how important it is to work with your passions, with your unique gifts and talents.

Proof that doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.

“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.” ~ Rumi

“Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find the happiness that you had thought could never be yours.” ~ Dale Carnegie

“In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don’t try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.” ~ Lao Tzu

“If there is no passion in your life, then have you really lived? Find your passion, whatever it may be. Become it, and let it become you and you will find great things happen FOR you, TO you and BECAUSE of you.” ~ Alan Armstrong

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” ~ Emerson

“If one advances confidently in the direction of one’s dreams, and endeavors to live the life which one has imagined, one will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

If right now, you are in a place where you aren’t exactly doing the things you love, or maybe, you can’t even get a job, you might want to pause for a while and start asking yourself a couple of questions, questions that might help you discover what is it that you really want, why is it that your life is the way it is, where would yooku like to be headed, how does the perfect life looks for you, and many other questions that might help you get back on the right track and start living the life that you really deserve.

Is where you are right now really that bad? How will things be different once you get from A to Z? Will you be happy then?

How do you know this is true?

Will you be willing to let go of some “security” for a while in order to start on your journey of self-discovery and self-mastery? Are you willing to take some risks?

These are some things you might consider that maybe you haven’t thought about, or maybe you were too afraid to do it because of the answered you might have got, but if you really want to make your dreams become reality, you will have to face them all.

I can’t tell you something that you don’t know already, I can’t tell you some secret formula that will help you do the things you love and still be able to pay the bills (and this is something that I don’t think you would want for yourself, to just survive, to pay your bills), but what I can tell you is this: Always choose to focus on the things you do want to attract in your life, always choose to focus on that which is positive rather than negative, and picture yourself as already having the life that you want for yourself, knowing that by doing so, you will attract all that you need in order to make your dreams become reality.

Also, what I have personally learned from my mentor, Wayne Dyer, is to always use these powerful words: I Am!

When you use these two powerful words “I am”, followed by any statement, visualizing it, and adding emotion and certainty to it, you become one with it and it becomes one with you. When you combine these two powerful words with emotion and images, the whole universe will conspire to make it happen.

I am doing what I love, and I love what I do.

I am living a prosperous life, etc.

I am discovering new and great talents every day, talents I didn’t even know I have…

Your mind does not know how to differentiate between what is real and what is not, and by repeating these words to yourself, you will attract the right people, the right ideas, the right circumstance, and all that you need in order to become the person you want to become.

So if you are you willing to start the voyage of discovery into unknown lands and rediscover yourself, if you are willing to experience some short-term pain and discomfort so that you can later experience real happiness, you will be able to do what you love and be successful at it.

~love, Luminita 💫

Luminita D. Saviuc

Luminita is the Founder and Editor in Chief of PurposeFairy.com and also the author of 15 Things You Should Give Up to Be Happy: An Inspiring Guide to Discovering Effortless Joy . For more details check out the 15 Things You Should Give Up To Be Happy Book Page.

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joan | the backpack chronicles

at 12:11 pm

Very inspiring! From now on I will claim that I am successful and prosperous so that prosperity and success will also come my way. Keep on being an inspiration!

Elizabeth Sayers

Find your passion and your purpose will follow 🙂

When I got downsized from a job I worked my whole career to get to, after just a few months, I was pretty devastated. But I didn’t sit around and feel sorry for myself (for long). Instead, I took it as an opportunity to try some other things I really love doing. I’m not making millions (yet) but I’m the happiest I’ve been in a long time, and I do believe success will follow.

Great post. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the inspiration today. Great post, just what I needed to hear.

Thank you. Much needed today! This is where I am in my life right now. Wanting so badly out of this dead-end job and able to do what I am passionate about.