How to Do What You Love

How to Do What You Love

How to do what you love?

After years of contemplating this question, I’m confident to say that I figured it out.

And the best part is that I can answer it in a single sentence.

However, in order to relate to such an information dense summary without misunderstanding it, we need to cover some ground first. So, I’ll start with the long answer and I promise that at the end, I’ll include the short one.

The Road to Doing What You Love

Most of us have passions – things that we enjoy doing and are good at. Some even had the idea of earning by practicing what they love.

However, as you got into adulthood, some things that you considered to be of supreme importance slowly started shifting into the back seat. Instead, you learned to prioritize your chores, job, and mundane activities, most of which you don’t really enjoy doing.

Let’s stop here and ask the key question: why?

Why all these things, which should’ve been the top priority if money wasn’t a factor, aren’t your primary focus anymore?

Try to answer the question.

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If I’m correct, you didn’t really articulate your answer, but had a quick and indistinct thought along the lines of: “no time“, “job“, “money“, “food, bills, and shelter“, or something similar.

Slow down now…

The first step is to unambiguously accept some facts.

You are a conscious and intelligent human being. Under that assumption, you’d always choose what you think is best for you, based on your current knowledge and experience. And when you’re faced with a choice of multiple mutually exclusive options, you pick the one that benefits you the most.

Are you ready to face the truth now?

The fact that you abandoned all your passions for work is because you value financial stability more than anything else.

You value not being homeless more than drawing an image. You value sufficient calorie intake more than writing poetry.

You see where I’m going?

We both understand that there is a nostalgia-fueled feeling that you abandoned who you once “were“, but over time, money became so important to you that your old hobbies didn’t fit into the picture that much.

So be real with yourself and read this sentence:

Earning money is what you love.

That’s the exact reason why you allocate more than half of your awake time to earn it.

And in doing so, you’re doing exactly what you love:

You’re earning money.

Unless you accept this wholeheartedly, you’ll be miserable forever.

And the earlier you do, the better – as the risk of becoming filled with anger and expecting handouts grows bigger with every day of dissatisfaction that’s left unaddressed.

Now, if you already receive social benefits, beware of the trap! Relying on a third party to provide you with housing or welfare for you to practice some invaluable craft will induce major psychological damage and lead to parasitism. In most cases, you’ll be financially disincentivized to take control over your life.

Believe me, you wouldn’t enjoy neither of these:

• Being an “artist” and living in subhuman conditions while seeing others succeed in the game of life.
• Being put in a situation where you must sell your craft to survive rather than simply practice it.

And the only liberation, unless you’re born into wealth, is doing your job. The job that the society, as a whole, agreed has value.

I understand that what I’m preaching may be repulsive to people with inclination towards socialist ideas. But frankly, you’re also the capitalist you hate. You don’t provide for homeless people at your house, you don’t send money to families in Eastern Europe, and you’d always prefer getting the better deal – happily not overpaying for the same service. Free market capitalism is human nature.

So whenever you get side tracked, try to abandon the mindset that you’re exploited or that “the rich” owe you something. The reason your salary might be “low” is purely a function of supply and demand. In other words: your skills don’t benefit the society as much as others’.

Accept this, and you’ll feel liberated. In total control over who you are and how you want to live.

And if you’re not convinced yet, here’s a thought experiment.

Thought Experiment: Hiring a Lawn Mower

You need your lawn mowed. You place an ad and 100 people give you their quotes, all in the 150-200$ range, apart from one – a young boy offers to do it for 5$.

Which one will you pick?

No need to answer, here’s the reasoning behind any choice:

• “I would pick one of the 99% percent“. – I won’t say you’re lying, but throwing the equivalent value of a monthly supply of essential groceries is not consistent with being an intelligent human being.
• “I would pick the boy but pay him a dignified rate“. – What’s a dignified rate? Paying him 100% of what he asked? It’s still only 10$! A dignified rate is the one set by the market – and overpaying was debunked in the previous point.
• “I would pick the boy“. – Exactly! If the boy is willing to do it for that price, that means that he values the 5$ more than spending an hour elsewhere. You both benefit from the transaction.

Now, imagine that the boy comes and starts mowing your lawn. Within a few minutes, he feels ripped off and stops. He accuses you of exploiting him and starts demanding 500$.

What do you do? Again, let’s consider all possibilities:

• “I would pay him 500$“. – No you wouldn’t. Because you value having internet, gas, and electricity more than overpaying for someone to drag his feet in your backyard.
• “I would pay him 5$“. – You could try, but most probably you’ll end up with an unmowed lawn, as the boy apparently realized that he can get a better deal elsewhere.
• “I would pay him 150-200$“. – Exactly! The rate set by the market. You’ll get your lawn mowed and the worker will have to accept because nobody will pay higher than that, as there’s a high supply of people willing to do it for that price. Of course, an alternative scenario is to kick him out and hire someone else, which would also cost 150-200$, so leaving it in the same point.

In case you didn’t notice, this is the case for any employer, including your boss.

Your income is the way it is purely because of how many people are in need of your skills and how many other people would be happy to do your job for that amount.

If you have a better alternative, you’re free to quit, change your job, or do whatever makes sense.

How to Start?

I understand that a person may need to exceed certain income or net-worth thresholds to adopt this mentality. But regardless of how much you earn, here are some of the absolutely required steps:

• Save money
• Learn to invest

And a few optional but extremely helpful ideas:

• Treat your life as a business
• Pick a lucrative career path
• Negotiate the best salary
• Reduce your commute
• Start your financial independence journey or read the reasons why you need FIRE

Note that this is not saying “it is what it is” or any variations of conditioning oneself to be a timid animal, worked by his employer and milked by his government, while developing Stockholm syndrome for both. It is about accepting our human nature! And yes, I’m into FIRE and all that good stuff… But this thought process taught me that I neither dislike my job nor working, as many from the community do. I actually love it! It’s risk-free return on our time, the proceeds of which I use to buy more income producing assets, allowing me to do even more of what I love!

It’s a liberation.

If you think about it, this mindset is for everyone. Regardless of where you live!

Accept it and improve your life forever.

Discard it to enjoy today, and you’ll suffer in the future.

Those are the facts.

And that’s it. Now stop reading articles on this subject. They’ll just make you more anxious because most one dimensional authors aren’t even giving a solution. And please don’t list your passions and write ideas how to earn from them. You want the money, not to paint for money. After you set up a financial safety net, you can explore more exciting opportunities.

So, at the beginning I promised a short answer to the question… And finally:

How to Do What You Love?

Simple: embrace free-market capitalism.

Congratulations, you won’t feel like a victim ever again.