Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Creating Work From Your Passion ... or Finding Passion in Your Work

Recently I wrote an entry about finding what you're passionate about to help determine what projects you might want to work on during your time off. In the past few days, I've read a few blog entries that not so gently reminded me that if you want to take your passion and make it your bill paying work instead of your hobby, it will only work if your passion includes or can withstand the nasty, smelly, ugly side of running a business to make money. (Note that this is totally doable, but it's best to go into the business eyes wide open to some of these items)

These posts reminded me that leaving your passions as hobbies so that you enjoy them as such is a perfectly valid choice. If this is the route you take, make sure to find *something* that is part of your current work that you can take joy in. This will help bring several ways:
  1. You'll be happier/more joyful during your work hours. This will help you be a more productive employee since you'll have something you enjoy while you're there.
  2. Your passion can stay your passion. You'll have more enjoyment of it while you're doing it since you're not depending on it to pay your rent.
  3. Finding something to take joy in can be hard. Look anyway.

Here is Matt Linderman from 37Signals describing this idea:
"Find meaning in what you’re doing. Work to improve your industry. Get joy from making a customer’s day. Surround yourself with the kinds of people and environment that keep you engaged. Figure out the details and day-to-day process that keep you stimulated. Focus on how you execute and making continual improvements. Get off on how you sell, not what you sell."

In my list of priorities that I laid out in my previous post on this topic, I listed a lot of things that are not work related. Some of these include my wonderful wife, our awesome kids, my faith, and singing in a barbershop chorus. These are the really important things to me outside of work. Sure, I'd love to work on a famous project and/or for a big company, but is it important enough for me to take the time away from these other priorities to do so?

Should I realign my priorities? I'm not particularly inclined to at the moment because I love my wife and our kids, spending time with them, and taking care of them. Apart from that, singing brings great joy and has been a wonderful way to spend my personal time away from my family.

This does not mean that I'll abandon pb_ray or my vimrc repository. I will continue working on them as I get the opportunity. I'll also continue practicing my craft so that I get better. I just haven't yet found that project that is special enough to be a passion for me.

In the mean time, I plan to do my best at going through the 6 steps at the end of Amy Hoy's post on the subject. In other words, to steal her punch line, to practice open eyed passion instead of blindly following my passion.

Any suggestions, of course, are welcome. As is debate with anything said above.

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