Love What You Do

"If you lovr what you do, you will never work a day in your life."

I hate to do be a complete downer, but this statement might be one of the most ridiculous cliches uttered at any graduation ceremony. It lscks truth; futhermore, it creates a completely unrealistic expectation in our young people and unfarily puts work in a negative light.

First of all, let's look at the lack of truth in this statement. "If you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life." It is a conditional statement that is completely false. If you love what you do, you are still going to have to work. Yu will have to work to achieve whatever it is you love to do. You will have to work to become good, or, hopefully, great at what you love. I truly love what I do for a living. I teach English and I coach. I consider myself fairly successful in my career, and I feel I have become somewhat skilled in my chosen profession. Each day, I have the pleasur eof working with kids and trying to light a flame within each one of them, to help them become better at communicatiing and at thinking, I get to push kids to become better, to become stronger and to achieve whatever greatness is within them. I love these opportunities, and I will admit that some days, it does not feel at all like work. However, on other days, I work my tail off. I read, I disect wrting and thoughts, I develop lessons and presntations with a hope that they will spark thought within those I work with and I fear I will fail hopelessly. I break down film in the wee hours of the morning, and I argue with my best friends over what is appropriate and fair. I willingly place myself under pressure to perform.  I love this. But it is work. It is worth it, but it is work.

To say that loving what you do will eliminate any sense of work is unrealistic. It seems to say that work is a terrible thing that all of us should want to avoid, and the only way to avoid work is to do what you love. Wait, what? That is ludacris. Work is not a bad thing. It is not a negative act. WORK IS GOOD! If fact, I would go to the point of saying, if you do not work, you are never going to love what you do. You will never reach a level  of achievement or accomplishment in what you have chosen to do, and you will nver feel fulfilled.

The last point is a touchy one. We cannot tell our young people that if they do what they love they will never work a day in their lives. It is unfairt and unrealistic. It is a little bit like the other classic cliches that is truly ridiculous: all we need is love. No, you need food, you need shelter, you need water, and you need to pay your dang bills. And I hate to burst any bubbles, but just becaue you love someone, it does not mean you will never have to work at making that relationship work. There will be tough times, and you will have to work to make it through. It does not mean the love is any less authentic and pure; it means that love is worth working for. At some point, everyone has to work at what they do. What happens to that young person who has sucked down the Kool-Aid and beleived that he will never have to work as long as he loves what he is doing when he hits that tough spot? What happens when his natural talents that led to his love of what he does must be developed and extended beyond what is natural, so he must push himself to learn and develop further? What happens when his coworkers are not as in love with their profession as he is, but the success of the project depends on his motivating them to do their best work? What happens whern he is actually challenged, because he does love what he does and is talented at it, and, therefore, people expect greatness from him? He will have to (gasp) work.

And, there is the irony.  It is not that doing what you love will allow you to never work a day in your life. Doing what you love will, in fact, force  you to work harder. If you love what you do, you will will want to work to do it well, to become great at what you love. Doing what you love allows you to love your work. And, as I said, work is a good thing.

So love what you do. If you love it, you will know that the work is worthwhile, and you will love it even more.