Do What You Love

Some people are just born knowing what to do with their lives. My uncle, for instance, knew that he wanted to design houses since he was a kid. He took architecture in college, became an architect and opened his own architecture firm. But others aren’t so lucky; they have absolutely no idea what they want to do. The standard advice for these people is always “do what you love”.

What if you don’t know what you love? No one seems to be able to answer that. Well, here’s my advice:

Be a pilot. Flying planes is cool. The pay is really good, too. If you end up for some reason not liking being a pilot, you can counterbalance that by spending your abundant free time playing video games. Imagine being able to play lots of video games without guilt. That would be even cooler than flying planes.

Be a petroleum engineer. This is almost as glamorous and well-paying as being a pilot. The only danger is that I have no idea what petroleum engineers are to do when we finally run out of oil.

Be an SAP consultant. Try to be on the business side. If SAP projects ever dry up, you can always be a business analyst. Business analysts are never outsourced.

In essence, when in doubt, go for the money. It’s better to be bored wealthy than to be bored poor. The only exception to this rule is to be a doctor just to get rich. True, specialists such as cardiologists can get plenty rich, but it’s a whole lot of slog, and a whole lot of stress. You’re dealing with people’s lives here, so you had better be passionate about it.

But if you do know what you love, and you’re pretty sure about it, then just do it, money or no money; enjoy every meaningful moment of it, and count yourself lucky. To quote Paul Graham, “… look at what happens to those who win lotteries or inherit money. Much as everyone thinks they want financial security, the happiest people are not those who have it, but those who like what they do.”

1 November 2007 | Uncategorized | Comments