It’s an interesting idea, doing what you love so that you never really work a day in your life.
But does it actually hold weight in real life? Is it good advice?
I suppose that depends on who you’re asking and what passions that person has. Maybe someone out there really loves just coding for 50 hours per week, so they’re in love if they’re coding full time, all year long, for years on end.
But I suspect a lot of people out there find it quite hard to realistically mesh passion and a full-time career – indeed, whenever people are directly asked whether they like or dislike their jobs, 70% to 80% of people say they either hate their jobs or are actively disengaged.
Similarly, it was my distaste for my prior career that motivated me to become financially free.
But no matter what number you try to put on it, most people don’t like what they do for a living.
And that’s a real shame when you consider that you’re going to spending most of your waking hours at your job.
So is the solution just to do what you love so that you never have to really work again?
I’m not so sure about that…
I’m Already Paid To Do What I Love
I love quite a few different things, reflecting a wide variety of passions, which I think is true for most people.
I enjoy writing. Reading. Investing. Exercising. Intimacy. Eating. Listening to music. Going for walks. Beaches. Urbanity. Spending time with animals. Philanthropy. Watching movies. Helping others reach their personal goals. Having long talks about a variety of subjects. Leisurely evenings where I just think. Stuff like that.
What’s great about financial freedom is that I’m essentially already “paid” to do any and all of this.
Financial freedom is basically being in a position where you’re paid just to exist, to wake up and go about your day. You do something. Get paid. Don’t do anything. Get paid. Sleep. Get paid.
I’m collecting dozens of dividend payments every month, along with income from my best-selling book.
And this is just my passive income.
On top of that, I also earn some income via this site, which is an incredible blessing. And I freelance write, too. Being paid to pursue my passion for writing is a gift.
I don’t have to wake up early, deal with traffic, clock in, fulfill quotas, dress a certain way, or deal with managers in order to collect a check. Instead, I can do pretty much whatever I want without concern about paying rent or eating, which is why I’m able to concentrate on higher-level needs.
I don’t need to worry about whether or not my passions would make for a good job. I’m already doing what I love but not working. I’m a “professional” reader, exerciser, movie watcher, and thinker… simultaneously. Doesn’t matter that these jobs might not actually exist – I don’t need them to. In effect, I’ve “created” my own customized occupation(s). And this customization can change any time, at will.
But What About Just Meshing Your Passion And Your Career?
However, is there a lot of value in being financially free?
What if we could just circumvent the whole process of saving and investing, skipping financial freedom altogether?
Why not just do what you love right out of the gate and make a career out of it?
Well, I think plenty of people set out to do that. I mean, I’ve never met anyone who started their career off with the idea that they were going to hate it and be miserable for the rest of their life. I don’t think that’s how it works.
But there are a few key points to be made here.
Does Anyone Have Their Entire Life Figured Out In Their Early 20s?
I know I certainly didn’t. And I’ve been candid about that.
I dropped out of college after my mother committed suicide and later blew through a modest inheritance before stumbling my way into the auto industry.
Now, I did give the whole thing some thought, or else I wouldn’t have ever went to college in the first place. But there weren’t really a lot of “jobs” I could see myself doing for the rest of my life. Nothing really excited me, and I was concerned that the few things that did excite me wouldn’t make me enough money to have the kind of life I thought I was supposed to have.
I did take a course for personal training in my early 20s, but I was concerned about the income prospects and competitive nature of the job. (Ironically, I’m thinking of becoming a personal trainer once again, now that I can do it more or less on my terms, without concern about the money or anything else.)
According to research conducted by accounting firm AAT, people start to feel trapped by their career in their mid-30s, partly because of a lack of foresight. Many people do what they do for the money, even if it’s not a real passion.
Hmm, doing what I love or having a roof over my head? Tough choice…
Of course, I think many people end up chasing consumerism, which puts them in this position in the first place.
Sometimes you do end up pursuing your passion, but other priorities often become a bigger (and sometimes unforeseen) draw later in life. Building a family and having a home can take up a lot of someone’s energy and time, to the point where a career and ambition kind of gets put on the back burner. Before you know it, the passion you felt for paralegal work is displaced by a passion for raising a family.
And what if you just plain fall out of love with your career? Maybe being a police officer sounded like a great way to clean up your local community, but you become jaded by the bureaucracy (or insert problems here) over the years. Maybe working third shift no longer appeals to you. Maybe you don’t want to risk your life any longer now that you’re getting up there in years. Maybe you’re just bored of it after 10 years of the same thing.
People change over time. We grow. Our goals, ideas, desires, and perspectives change.
I know I’m not the same person I was back when I was just starting out in my career. I’m a totally different guy now.
But a career might not change with you, unfortunately. It’s still usually the same repetitive tasks that were there when you were younger. I could have continued being a service advisor, but I know my days would be filled with the same exact tasks as they were five years ago.
Anything is possible along the way. One might get sick and not be able to work for an extended period of time. Almost by definition, taking on a career is an attempt to plan your life out for decades in advance, but we just don’t know what’s going to happen and change in the interim.
The value of financial independence is that you’re able to spend time on new priorities if the career isn’t fulfilling you as much as it did when you were younger. You’re able to be a professional “stay-at-home parent” or “home-keeper-upper” (or whatever) without worrying about how the bills are going to get paid. Or you can move over to a totally different career path without being worried about pay cuts or how long the cross-training might take. You can take an extended period of time off, or quit altogether, at will.
What If You Love Your Job But Your Job Doesn’t Love You?
This is an issue that people don’t think about until a crisis hits.
The recent Great Recession is a great example of how expendable employees really are.
I was let go from a car dealership back in 2009. Of course, working in the auto industry just outside Metro Detroit is pretty much being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But we all know plenty of people were suddenly unemployed when the economy took a dive – and many people still haven’t fully recovered.
So you might love your job but will your job always love you? And if it stops loving you one day, will you be able to just hop and skip right over into something else?
The value of financial independence is that you’re able to cover your bills indefinitely in case your job stops loving you. You can take your time finding the next job (if you still want to work) rather than just jumping on the next thing that will give you a paycheck, or you can just take some serious time off to do… whatever. Travel. Spend time with family. Read those books you always wanted to. Binge on movies for a few months.
You’re flexible when you’re financially free. There’s no script you have to follow.
What If What You Love Isn’t Easily Monetized?
This is an issue that’s easy to overlook with vague advice like just doing what you love so that you never truly work.
What if what you love isn’t a real job? Or what if you can’t monetize your passion?
For instance, what if you love playing basketball but aren’t good enough to make a living at it?
What if you, like me, enjoy spending upwards of five hours per day simply reading?
I’ll spend hours in any given day reading about subjects as varied as park funding across various cities, changes in global alternative energy, a new product/service that a company I own a slice of just came out with, infrastructure projects in Southeast Asia, studies on happiness, public transportation research, and financial statements (10-Q/10-K). These are just examples. I could write an entire article simply covering what I read in one day.
How easy would it be for me to convince someone to pay me good money to do that? To just read what I want for hours on end?
You can see where I’m going here.
The value of financial independence is that you’re able to do what you want, when you want, with whom you want – without concern about finances. So you can do what you want and never work a day in your life but bypass the whole pesky task of figuring out how to get paid for it. Have a passion that isn’t easy to monetize? Doesn’t matter. You can do it for you without worrying about the financial aspect of it.
A Career’s Schedule Isn’t Always Compatible With Your Schedule
This is perhaps the biggest problem of all, for me personally.
While I may still some day down the road attempt to become a personal trainer, it’s only one of my top post-career career ideas because of the inherent flexibility regarding the work schedule. You can be independent, training your clients either in the morning or afternoon in their home or at another site. Or you can work for a gym, part time or full time, training their clients. But it’s definitely not a 9-5 kind of thing. Many clients are working full time, meaning the training is occurring outside normal work hours.
Most careers, however, are not so flexible.
You’re usually looking at starting early in the morning and working until late in the afternoon, every workday. 40 hours or more per week. 50 weeks per year. For decades.
All I can say to that is yikes!
Look, I love writing. I have a real passion for it, or else I wouldn’t be writing this article.
But would I want to start writing at 7:30 in the morning and continue until 5:00 in the evening, with a lunch break in the middle? Would I want to then repeat that five days per week, 50 weeks per year, for the next 30 years of my life?
And would I then want to be held to some kind of writing quota, where I have to fulfill a certain predetermined quantity and quality of content by certain dates? A quota that’s designed by someone else, to their standards?
Would I want to abide by this schedule even knowing that I’m not at peak energy and creativity for four or so hours straight at a time, that my mind instead has bursts of creativity and my body bursts of energy that are best used in the moment, after which I rest?
Absolutely not.
There’s nothing in this world – I repeat, nothing – that I want to do that much. Period. Not hours and hours every day for years and years of my life. And definitely not on that kind of schedule.
I like waking up at about 10:30 in the morning. And I like going to bed in the late evening (early morning, technically). I’m much more creative between about midnight and 2:00 a.m. than I am at any other part of the day. Not having to abide by an agrarian and/or religious schedule (clearly defined workweeks and weekends where work is started early in the morning) is one of the best things about financial independence, and it’s something that I find improves my happiness and success.
The value of financial independence is that you’re able to create your own schedule and then go about doing work (or not doing work) based on that schedule, as opportunities allow. In fact, you’re able to create your own opportunities that work around a schedule that’s designed to allow you to routinely harness results at peak creativity and energy. You can work part time… or even totally change your direction if/when thing get stale.
So What’s The Answer?
I don’t believe there’s ever a one-size-fits-all solution for everyone, all of the time. That includes the concept of work.
But I think there are generally three broad paths that one has to choose from:
- Do that which you love but also pays enough so that you minimize how much you feel like you’re “working”. But still continue to climb Mt. Freedom by maintaining a very high savings rate and investing that excess capital into high-quality income-producing assets (like dividend growth stocks, funds, or rental properties). See above reasoning. You’ll be free to take a leap once you’ve got a good chunk of your expenses covered, if you need to.
- Do whatever pays the most but is still reasonably acceptable in regards to your happiness and work/life balance, if you can’t figure out what you want to do or you don’t think your passions will pay. Simultaneously march toward financial freedom so that you can tell the boss to shove it right about the time you can’t take it anymore. You’ll be financially free at a young age and now able to pursue your passions with reckless abandon. Or you’ll be close enough to financial independence to make it work.
- Become an entrepreneur right out of the gate. This is the most difficult but potentially most rewarding path of all. One should still concurrently pursue financial freedom for all of the aforementioned reasons. Keep in mind, too, that one can become an entrepreneur after they become financially free… or at any other point along the way.
I personally picked option #2, then kind of migrated toward option #3 later in in my career. You can blur the lines between these options like, say, building a business in your spare time while simultaneously working a day job that pays you an attractive income – all while saving and investing. That’s what I did. But what you do is up to you.
I also want to quickly note that I’m not saying this is all binary: do what you love or make money. If you can make the first path work, that’s great. I just think it’s naive to believe that everyone out there can do what they love and never actually work a day in their life. There’s certainly a spectrum of enjoyment there, along with a spectrum of income. One should simply aim to operate at the most advantageous positions possible along both spectra.
The good news, however, is that financial independence allows you to live at the extreme end of the enjoyment spectrum, while simultaneously not worrying about money any more. It’s pretty much the best of both worlds.
Conclusion
I find a quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to be insightful:
Cease endlessly striving for what you want to do and learn to love what must be done.
I believe we should always aim to do what we love. But we should also find maximum value in what we must do. I never loved my job more than when I realized it was the fuel for the fire that would eventually allow my escape. Taking advantage of what must be done by using it to achieve financial freedom sure makes it easier to learn to love it.
If you can really go out and do what you love, get paid lots of money, never have to worry about your job not loving you back, have a great work/life balance, not have to deal with much workplace drama, work on a schedule that happens to coincide with your peak energy and creativity, and figure it all out at 22 years old, more power to you.
But I don’t think that’s how life really works for most of us.
It’s easy to say just go do what you love so that you never work a day in your life, but life is really much more messy and complicated than that. Situations change. We change.
We grow, learn, and (should) become better versions of ourselves every day. As such, there’s a good chance that someone outgrows what they’re doing, or simply develops bigger priorities or interests. You might find that what you loved at 25 isn’t fun at 40.
Moreover, you might discover that you don’t love doing anything 40 or 50 hours per week, 50 weeks per year, for 30 or more years of your life. Or you might find that what you love isn’t something an employer is willing to pay you to do. We don’t always get to do what we love. Let’s be honest.
But if you’re not flexible, you lack choices. You’ll have to work for the money, whether you like it or not.
This is all exactly why financial freedom is still so valuable, even if you follow the advice of doing what you love.
Finally, I figured out long ago that you can rearrange the words “career” and “work” to come up with “a wreck”.
While it doesn’t have to be that way, it can be. And that’s all the more reason to be flexible. Don’t be a wreck.
What do you think? Do you believe in the advice of doing what you love so that you never work a day in your life? Why or why not? Do you still think financial freedom has a lot of value, even if you end up successfully meshing passion and work? Are you interested in doing what you love without worrying about money? Check out my coaching service.
Thanks for reading.
Image courtesy of: Mr-Vector7 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
That was very good Jason! This is a very complex topic and one that I struggle finding the answer to. Ultimately I continue doing what I have to do to continue the march towards FI. I like the quote “Boys do what they want to do, men do what they have to do.” I’m hoping to return to my childhood in the future 🙂
Mr Defined Sight,
As I recently wrote about, I think financial independence allows one to get back in touch with their childhood to a degree. And that’s not a bad thing. 🙂
Thanks for dropping by!
Cheers.
This article has been in my head for years…I am an idealist, who always saw my parents do jobs they didn’t love for a paycheck and vowed to die trying to find a job I loved so I didn’t have to sell my soul for money….
Now older, wiser and 3 careers in after my undergrad…I get it…it is exactly as you explain. “It’s easy to say just go do what you love so that you never work a day in your life, but life is really much more messy and complicated than that. Situations change. We change.”
Employers don’t set up jobs for their employee’s life fulfillment purposes. They set up jobs so that the company can make a profit (that is not bad, but simply what companies missions are, no matter how altruistic they paint their mission). If you have a personality that enjoys working in one of these profit-producing jobs, AMAZING! However, like yourself, almost everything I enjoy, I can’t imagine an employer paying me for.
I have worked for years…putting myself through grad school and a myriad of jobs to find the perfect fit.
Now, I understand that work (to me) may often be a means to an end. At times I feel sad when I see someone like Bruno Mars, love what he does or a successful Doctor radiate contentment…but I realize that we are all different and thrive in a variety of environments. No one direction is intrinsically better or worse, as long as we don’t let societal expectations make them feel so.
Thank you for the great article!
Nicki,
Thanks for dropping by. So glad you enjoyed the piece!
Yeah, I totally hear you. Jobs aren’t set up for our satisfaction. There’s a natural dynamic at play there where you have two very different motives competing: profit and enjoyment. They can be in harmony sometimes, but it’s really tough. The good news, though, is that you can use the former to attain the latter if you’re thoughtful about it. Once you’re financially independent, you’re paid to do whatever you want. And you’re free to pursue what you love (without fear of not being able to pay your bills) rather than having to only pursue what you must do.
Best wishes!
You brought up so many thought-provoking points in this article, Jason. This topic of doing what you love vs. realistically earning an income is something I think about constantly. As a new college grad I find myself following a blend of Path 1 and 2 you outlined.
I am definitely in a field that I enjoy and pays well, but I recognize that the 33 year old version of myself might not feel as enthusiastic about this career as much as the 23 year version does right now, which is why I’m pursuing financial freedom. I agree with your point that it would be wonderful if we could get paid to do what we love each day for a living, but life is inherently more complex than that. I love reading your articles because it helps tremendously to hear from the perspective of someone older than myself who has already reached financial freedom.
Thanks as always for another great read!
FPP,
Appreciate that. So glad the article provided you value and perspective. This is a topic I’ve wanted to broach for a while now. Although I’ve danced around it on occasion, I finally felt ready to raise a number of points in one article.
If you can do what you love and make really good money, go for it. But I still think one should always aim for financial independence. It’s far better to be flexible than not. Maybe you’ll still love what you’re doing in 10 years. Or maybe not. Or maybe the job will stop loving you. You just don’t know. Better to hope for the best but prepare for the worst. 🙂
Thanks for dropping by!
Best regards.
Jason,
Most times people do NOT have a choice in the job they work at as the job “chooses” us. I have worked a variety of jobs, as a job is needed to provide income to pay my bills. I definitely did not want to do most of those jobs, but when I desperately need an income I will do any job.
If a person is more outgoing, they have more possible job choices, which can be a blessing or a curse. If a person is quiet, their choices of employment are often limited regardless of how smart they are. I fall into the latter. I do the types of jobs that I do, as my lack of social skills prevent me from getting a lot a jobs. A good example is nursing. Nurses that I know say they love the profession, but when they start in the profession they realize it is not as glamous as they thought it would be as shift work is required.
Those polls about the amount of people who do not like their job, definitely reflect the majority of the population. A lot of individuals do not think about the words that come out of their mouth. I hear so many people complain about their jobs using phrases like ” I have to work tomorrow “, ” vacation was too short” , or ” I need a vacation big time “. People also will apply for jobs solely based on the money, as they need a certain amount to money to provide for their life style. People who do not like their jobs, often have to keep working at that job to provide for their lifestyle.
I think everyone should try to become financially independent. Having multiple sources of income can reduce stress in life. An employee does NOT owe an employee anything. An employee does work for a week or 2 weeks for an employer, and then the employer rewards you with a paycheck. When work slows down, the employers starts laying people off.
IP,
Definitely agree. We often do not choose a job based on qualities like satisfaction, passion, purpose, work-life balance, etc. We instead usually base our decisions around what we can get and what will pay us the right amount of money. I wish it were different. I wish the world were some kind of utopia. But it isn’t. As such, the pragmatic way to approach it all is to become financially free as soon as possible so that you can create your own miniature utopia. You can then more or less make the rules up as you go, and these rules will be customized for you and by you.
Thanks for adding that!
Cheers.
Nice article. I have thought many of the same things since going FIRE. I never loved accounting. After leaving it behind, I realized I don’t love anything enough to do it exclusively for 50 years.
FV,
I’m with you. I love exercising, for instance. Couldn’t exclusively do it 40-50 hours per week for the next four decades of my life, however. Fortunately, financial independence gives us an incredible amount of flexibility. It’s the best solution I know of. 🙂
Cheers!
Jason –
Very nice article. Let’s change that 40-50+ hours per week to 70-80 for public accountants… haha, ah, always have to wing that one in there. But it’s all meaning the same – love the article for a few reasons:
1.) I love helping people and having the connection with me clients – however, the topic/subject matter of accounting is not that exciting to me, yet here I am grinding through busy season ugh.
2.) I love the online site we have – but the 8-9/10pm at night thing doesn’t bode well for feeling energetic – this falls in line with your “career” may not allow you the time to do more of what you love/the flexibility.
3.) People do grow and change, that was clutch that you made a point of that – life is about challenges, fulfilling curiosity, learning and helping. If you are tapped out with what you are doing, then I say you are OK to change that!
4.) Family – ah, yes. When one starts this, the career typically does set to the side from what I can see, and it’s all over the spectrum – big movements or small. Nonetheless – the focus has changed.
Bottomline – I don’t think it is common whatsoever for you to be doing absolutely what you love working for a corporation. You are confined by their walls, and I’ve busted my ass to try and change that, but damn is it hard to make big changes in a huge company. I can see the 30 something year olds who have saved, invested and/or started their side business being happier, as they have more means to leave the corporate world – something I’ve been pushing hard at myself. If you don’t like what you’re doing, I highly suggest trying to find what you want to learn out of what you’re doing. Once you’ve captured that, should consider changing it up : ) my two cents, thanks Jason!
-Lanny
Lanny,
Yeah, absolutely. There are so many variables at play here, which is why it’s so hard for a, say, 22-year-old person to plan the rest of their life out. Life is super dynamic, yet careers often are not. The good news is that we have so many options. We just have to take advantage of the abundance around us. Once you realize there’s this amazing path that’s less traveled, hope is on the horizon.
Thanks for stopping by!
Best regards.
Excellent post, Jason!
This is a topic I’ve thought about a lot and I totally believe in the advice of doing what you love so that you never have to work a day in your life. My long term goal is to get to the same place as you–living off dividends, freelance, and blogging.
The one thing about my current role is that it doesn’t take up my free time at all. It helps to improve my writing skills too. However, I don’t think that it is possible to completely mesh passions and work. The day job has a way of making your passions not fun anymore.
I am definitely interested in doing what I love and not worrying about money. My free time will be spent very similarly to yours once I get there. Thanks for sharing! This was an inspiring post!
Graham,
Thanks so much, man. So glad you found some inspiration here! 🙂
Indeed, it’s tough to just go out and do what you love without concern over money, as we all have to pay the bills. I love Thoreau, but I won’t be going out to live in the woods anytime soon. So you always have that looming concern about housing, food, etc. But financial independence largely eliminates those concerns, allowing one to bridge that gap between passion and time consumption.
Thanks for dropping by!
Best wishes.
I still love my job but I enjoy it so much more now that I’m financially independent and don’t have to work if I don’t want to. I’ve cut back on my hours to a point that I have time to pursue other interests and travel. Financial independence is wonderful because it gives you the freedom of choice. Wonderful post, Jason.
RocDoc,
I’m with you all the way. Doing something because you want to rather than because you have to is such a great position to be in. It totally changes the work-life dynamic. The freedom of choice – be it what you do, who you do it with, and/or how often you do it – is invaluable, yet it’s not that difficult to attain. That’s the beauty of financial independence. 🙂
Cheers!
This is a fantastic article as I am currently in a job that is challenging and can be enjoyable, but at the same time dealing with the general populous can give its challenges as well. I’m on the opposite side of the equation from you where you were in the dealership, I was the insurance guy who came out. So those conversations you had were the same ones I had. Except I was evil because their policy doesn’t cover rebuilding total cars or for magically making things more valuable. It’s always truly a pleasure when I get someone who is genuinely thankful for my help, but those are fewer and farther between these days.
DD,
Boy, I know how you feel. You’re a guy few people want to see. And that makes it tough to really have meaningful interactions with your customers.
I think my job was more challenging than enjoyable, though it did have its (few and far between) moments. But I used my dissatisfaction as motivation to get me out of there. Worked wonders!
We all have passions. We all have things we enjoy. But many of these things don’t pay well… or at all. If we can eliminate the money concerns from the equation, we’re free to really focus on the things that provide us happiness and purpose. And what a great world this would be if we were all able to do that.
Thanks for dropping by!
Cheers.
You know there are few moments that I get a true lol. The fact that no one wants to see the guy who’s paid to throw money at them always baffles me. “Hey I’d like to make it rain!” The response is always why do the big bad insurance companies short change me? Insert immediate face palm. But hey when I do get to help out it’s a privilege to help someone. Thanks for the continued great content. Followed you for years.
That “Do what you love..” quote has been a thorn in my side for years. I stumbled into my career. I was a middle class Indian child in the 90s and my options were doctor or engineer. I “chose” the latter. Over time I grew to enjoy what I do for a living. I even became pretty good at it. But I don’t love it all the time, and that quote made me feel like a failure for never having found a passion that made me happy all the time for decades on end. And having done what I do for so many years I can’t help but wonder what else is out there. What else could I be doing if I didn’t need my salary? What else could I explore? What else can I create? I want to know the answer to these questions and that is why I’m working towards financial independence. Less than four more years to go. Wheeee.
Mrs. BITA,
I can relate 100% to that. I think a lot of us stumble into our careers. The situation where we have to earn the money to pay our bills totally changes the dynamic. But if we can eliminate money from the equation, how does that change our lives?
Those questions you ask yourself are the same I ask myself. I think about what I could be creating and exploring if I own all of my time. And this site is one example of that. The coaching is another. All of the other pursuits listed in the article have also manifested. And I have a few other ideas in mind that will likely come at some point down the road. The great thing is that all of these ideas aren’t driven by money but rather the excitement of being happy and finding purpose.
Best of luck with the remaining four years! 🙂
Cheers.
I can’t say it any better myself so here are three great Joseph Campbell quotes I try to adhere to:
“I think the person who takes a job in order to live – that is to say, for the money – has turned himself into a slave.” Joseph Campbell
“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.” Joseph Campbell
“Is the system going to flatten you out and deny you your humanity, or are you going to be able to make use of the system to the attainment of human purposes?” Joseph Campbell
Steven,
Yeah, I agree with all of those quotes. The problem is that rent has to be paid, the lights have to stay on, and we have to eat. Thus, money enters the picture more often than not. But financial independence is wonderful in that it allows one to largely eliminate money from the equation, which then allows them to open those doors and really explore life. 🙂
Cheers!
Hi Jason,
First of all, congratulations on starting your new site. Hopefully it brings you enough joy and success going forward.
Second of all, congratulations on maintaining your unique voice.
Third, this article brings an interesting topic to discuss. It is interesting how we evolve over time. The interests in our teens, twenties and thirties all change. The realities change as well however for many.
In terms of passions, I think that passion alone is not enough unfortunately. You need to work super hard to get to where you want to be. Unfortunately many fail to reach their true potential because they let life get in the way.
Good luck in your journey!
DGI
DGI,
Thanks so much!
It’s been a lot of fun to start a new project. I could have just done Dividend Mantra 2.0 if I really wanted to, but I didn’t. As your comment notes (and as the article notes) we change/evolve/grow over time, as we should. To stay the same person with the same views throughout all of life would be, well, kind of terrible. And so I knew I wanted to do something different with the site. Super happy with that. Although investing is a huge passion for me, it’s far from my only passion. This site tackles some of those other ideas.
I wouldn’t necessarily say passion is not enough. I’d just say that our time is very limited. Everything competes for our time. And when you have bills to pay, you have to meet those obligations. Thus, passions get pushed to the sidelines for most people. But financial independence allows one to pay those bills while simultaneously getting rid of a lot of the competition for time. Once your time is freed up, you’re able to bring those passions back out from the sidelines and get them into the game.
Thanks for dropping by!
Best wishes.
Excellent article, Jason. You reveal the stark reality of how improbable it is for all the different job satisfaction factors to align. Its much smarter to pursue early FI in almost every personal scenario in wealthy economies where pay is typically abundant but job demands are likewise typically very large. Make the coin and punch out early!
Joshua,
Couldn’t have said it better myself!! 🙂
Best regards.
Another great article from you on a really important subject.
I get really cranky when people lecture the Do What you Love idea. I could never see my self doing what I love for 10+ hours a day, day after day…I’ll stop liking it. With that approach, as with careerism, one becomes very narrow minded.
Several of my hobbies could be turned into money making enterprises and my friends suggest I do that all the time but wouldn’t be able to be happy doing them knowing that I depend on that for a living. It takes all the joy out. Others, as you have mentioned, are difficult to monetise and I’m not interested in doing that as I rather have the freedom to do it my way 🙂
I did try studying what I love in my undergrad but realised I was not going to get a good job so switched to something that I’m good at – Public Accountant. It burned me out. Even though I enjoyed the challenging work is impossible for me to do that more for than a couple of years. Now, I’m trying the entrepreneurial side until I reach FI. Can’t wait 🙂
I”m grateful I’ve been able to advise some of siblings on career choices that will lead to FI faster and in more fulfilling ways than mine.
Ali,
I know exactly what you mean. The whole “just do what you love and the money will follow” thing strikes me as super naive. I usually hear it from people who have made a ton of money by being in the right place at the right time. To think that this can be replicated by everyone seems silly. I mean, I wish the world were perfect. I wish we could all just do whatever we want and make good money. But it doesn’t work that way. Moreover, even if you gave me what I’d consider the “perfect” job right now, I’d eventually tire of it anyhow. I can’t do one task or one set of tasks for many hours per week for decades of my life. We grow, change, and evolve. Jobs tend not to grow with us. But financial independence allows us to change direction at will.
What’s great about all of this is that the super dynamic people who want a way out are generally dynamic enough to figure out a path and get there pretty quickly, which sets you up nicely for the rest of your life. 🙂
Thanks for dropping by!
Cheers.
Aha. I hear the phrase from those people too and from friends who have been heavily financially supported by their parents through the development of their Do What you Love work. Indeed, even if given a perfect job I’ll go nuts doing the same things ever and over. There is no no natural evolution and intrinsic changes in the modern carer environment.
Thanks for your reply! Have a great weekend
This is spot on. Doing what you love is great until it changes. Industries change, profits shrink, and more is demanded from the American worker (from both employers and customers). Ask any of the old timers here in banking and I guarantee that everyone of them will give you the same phrase, “Banking isn’t what it used to be.”
Same thing for young people breaking into a “tolerable” line of work, like good ol’ customer service (gee, I think it’s been limits a day since I hated on customer service around here). They don’t save/invest and many don’t have any interest in developing any non-service/sales skills because they “can handle” all the nonsense that goes into customer service or because they “enjoy interacting with people”. But I tell them to give it a few years; by the time they can no longer stand the general public, they will have much less time and ability to transfer to a new line of work.
Exhibit A: Angry Retail Banker
Sincerely,
ARB–Angry Retail Banker
ARB,
Definitely. In a perfect world, we could all just do what we love and make a healthy income from it. And as our passions/interests change, new positions would just be there waiting for us. But this isn’t a perfect world. And so we have to marry pragmatism and optimism as much as possible. We have to pay the bills while simultaneously limiting how much we forget about our true passions.
I was one of those people in a position of service. It was really tough to work those 10-11 hours per day and then come home to plot my escape. Wasn’t easy. But it was most certainly worth it. I’m not sure how many people out there really have a passion for customer service. Likely less than 5% of all people. The good news, though, is that those positions can pay pretty decently, and they’re not always all that difficult to get. Of course, automation is probably going to start taking these positions out here in the near future, which just boosts the value of everything I’m talking about here.
Thanks for dropping by!
Best regards.
This is a very good post Jason. Ultimately, this is the question we gotta answer on our way to FI. I am sticking around. Please let me know if you’d be interested in a guest post. Best
Benjamin,
Thanks so much. Glad you enjoyed the article. 🙂
Hope you continue to enjoy the ongoing content.
Cheers!
You’ve hit on SOOO many points that have me nodding my head vigorously. I loved writing and wanted to write for a living, so I went into journalism and did that for a few years. But it’s not just about writing – it’s about a lot more, and those other aspects were not my strengths. The hours often sucked. And the pay….
When you love your job but your job doesn’t love you it can be very hard to let go of.
My husband’s interest are not easily monetised, and as much as he loves food and is good at cooking, the paths that could take have terrible hours and often require lots of capital to start up.
(I wrote a very long post on this topic a little while back, actually: http://nzmuse.com/2015/06/post-jobs-settling/)
eemusings,
Thanks for sharing!
Your husband’s interests in cooking (and the various drawbacks to relevant paths) is a great example. It’s one thing to be a full-time cook or something because you have to put food on the table (pun intended). It’s quite another thing to write an e-book on favorite recipes, or take cooking classes, or become a part-time chef because it’s just something you want to do.
Writing is another great example. I write because I want to. I’d write even if I had 10x my wealth. But I write when I want, and I write when great ideas strike me.
Nonetheless, financial independence gives us opportunities that we wouldn’t otherwise have to actually do what we love, because we’re not really all that concerned about money any more.
Cheers!