Warning: Rant that follows is not necessary. If you would like to skip it just read the bold prompt at the bottom.

Recently I've gone through an experience that's taught me a valuable lesson. Even though this lesson is one that's going to sound familiar, and was one I "knew" before, I never really understood it or put much faith in it until now.

I learned how important it is to do something in and with your life that you truly love and have a passion for.

I had always separated what I loved, and what I did. My private life and the things that made me happy might as well have been national secrets from everybody who knew me. I always chose the practical way in actions and decisions, always chose the non-confrontational easiest path of least resistance. In doing this I ended up with a job and a life and a future I had no passion for, and infact was so contrary to who I was that it ate away at me and drove me to a breaking point. It was a practical job, that logically was the best choice even though I felt no particular draw to it. Now I'm being given a chance to start over.

I don't think, knowing what I now know and have experienced, that one can ever really be happy in life if they don't follow something they love and want to do. Even if this sometimes means not doing the practical, sensible thing. I learned also that money alone isn't enough of a motivator in doing something you're not meant to do...you always need that extra something special instead.

So what say you? Did you end up doing something you love? Do you dislike your job, or your current life? What's that extra little spark you have that keeps you going? Do you think it's best to go with responsible, practical, sensible things, or to set those aside for the sake of fulfillment and happiness?

I set out (career-wise) to do something which I loved, but it hasn't ended up that way. I don't particularly like my job, but practicalities have set in, and I can't just give it up unless I want to lose my flat, my car etc. If you can do what you love, that's great, but I think there is something to be said for trying to stay practical/realistic at the same time. I'm not unhappy with my life - my unsatisfying job gives me the opportunity to do what many others my age can't (namely live independently, it's a pretty hard market here), and seeing as I really don't care that much about my job I'm never one to bring work home with me, so it only impacts my life in the exact hours when I'm in the building.

Saying that, if in the future I'm able to go and do what I want, you bet I would in a heartbeat. It just pays to have a back-up plan, just in case.

Well considering I really enjoy doing nothing then, no, I do not love my job. Mainly because I can't stay home and get paid doing what I love. Which is nothing.

What motivates me? My 17 month old daughter.

My experience is a bit schizophrenic: I actually love my job, but I hate the way it's managed. It's an industry-wide problem pretty much, with many (likely most) people saying the same thing; it's so bad that I'm considering a change of career on the basis that even if I'm doing a job I'm ambivalent about, if it doesn't "enjoy" the same management structures that I'm used to it'll be a net improvement. Shame, really, but I guess one should be pragmatic about these things.

:o :nuke:


Did you break your atom mill (or whatever it's called)?



Well, speaking from personal experience, it depends on how willing you are to tolerate doing something practical over doing something you enjoy. Since the things I enjoy don't make any money, and the things that I am passably good at do make money, I chose the path that was most practical. I don't hate my career path, and I do enjoy it sometimes, but I don't think I can afford to just do what I really enjoy. In this economy, that's a luxury I don't have.

The way I look at it, if you get paid good money to do something you don't particularly enjoy, you can use that money to do what you do enjoy. We have to realists, unfortunately.

Five days filling out forms for two days playing Fallout?

I'm thinking, he pulled a double shift over a weekend, not having a date and waiting for skyrim.. bored he ended up teaching himself to juggle containment rods, and after the shifts he was glowing in the dark. Said screw this [censored], and is quitting the navy to become the pure, unhindered, concentrated joy and stardust with a delphinium flash and sugar on top that he always wanted to be. Good for him. Unless the navy has a billet for that, in which case I don't see why he should leave.
Go NAVY!!

If that's what you enjoy, sure. You're probably not going to be able to be paid to play Fallout, so you play that with the money you get from your boring job. svcks, i guess :unsure:

Now it just came to me how freaking awesome working at IGN would be...

I worked at a job for 31 years that I hated. It paid good so I stayed with it. All the while I had kept up with things I enjoy. Because of the repetition of the job I had, I had plenty of time to think about my outside interests. Now that I'm retired I do the things I enjoy.

Do the responsible thing first and then find time for enjoyment. In time, you will find all the time you need to do only what you enjoy.
If you enjoy your work, with all its responsibility, then you are the most happy person in that thing that causes you to be responsible.

I dunno. I've never done a job that I "loved". I've had jobs that I don't mind going to, but nothing that involves my actual interests. All just manual labour. Currently I spend the day lifting things, driving a forklift and unloading semi-trailers by hand out in the heat. Not exactly amazing. The work itself isnt "fun" but it has the bonus of not being "boring". Doing paperwork all day or entering data in spreadsheets would be boring. At least when I'm busy and sweating my ass off time seems to fly. Plus the key factor in me not minding is the PEOPLE. Good people make even a [censored] job tolerable.

I wonder if I would want to have a job that really involves any hobby or interest, cause that seem to be a great way to turn something you enjoy into something you can't stand. Guess I will have to wait and see if anything comes out of school.

So, Steampunk is like a male version of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jem_%28TV_series%29?

Everyone knows that! You be perfect at something you have to love it and if you can't be perfect there is no point in doing it!

I had a chance to get trained on the forklift where I work and I didn't apply. That looks like so much fun to me! I'm part of the spreadsheet and data lot now. Still kind of wish I'd given the forklift a go though (although that isn't my dream job either )

May I ask what you did (job-wise)?

Well that's not the only thing I enjoy, it was just an example.

The only, only thing I have ever encountered that I have any ability at whatsoever (other than whining) is imagination. I wrote a semi-organized, 200-page compiled essay of suggestions for the next Elder Scrolls, and while you of course can't please everyone, people seemed to approve of them more often than not when I posted in the suggestion threads. After Skyrim was announced I mostly put it aside, but I'm still constantly nagged in the back of my mind to add new things or replace current ones with better ideas. I'm plagued by similar with many games I play, most recently being occupied by a storm of what-ifs for if I was designing Dungeon Keeper 3.

But, imagination doesn't pay the bills, and because of my lack of talent I've always been the hopeless dreamer. Doing anything I have a passion for isn't an option, since I have no passions that I know of; inside my head there's so much I want to do, but am utterly incapable of expressing any of it with even the most feeble veneer of competence. I can't remember if I ever had any extra spark, but I sure don't have one now. I hit a breaking point a long time ago, but nothing changed, and at this point my schedule is mostly "wake up, be barely alive until bedtime".

That said, I would always recommend to put fulfillment and happiness over the practical. There are limits to this of course; I have no more affinity for the person who lets their kids wear potato sacks so they can continue using their free time on a hobby instead of a job, than for the person who works themself into breakdown so they can look important and successful to others. I don't care for the cultural bias that places more importance on financial success than personal happiness. Responsibility is good, but you have just as much responsibility to yourself as others, and forcibly trying to be who you're not is a quick way to fail in that responsibility.

Working at IGN isn't 100% amazing, you have no idea.
They don't just sit on the PC and get 500 emails with info. They work as a business and not as nerds sitting somewhere writing articles. They work hard to get things before others or to write articles very well to make people read their things instead of anything else. Not to mention you play unfinished games all the time that crash every 5 seconds and god knows what else.

I'm much the same, I love writing, but writers of my quality are ten a penny. Although I am surprisingly capable of churning out long essays about arms dealing and antiterrorism in 1970s Lesotho.


Neither do I, but it seems liek you have to be relatively successful just to be able to maintain yourself at a moderate level.

Pfft, a monkey could write the trash that IGN churns out.

There's been research that found the happiness-cutoff for money making you happy is about $70,000 a year (including benefits). Above that they found no difference.

I am not liking life right now. I get so many interviews and they are all happy and giddy about giving me the job, and tell me we will call you tomorrow to get you all set up for the job. At the very last second it seems, they change their mind and give the job to someone else.

Well, mine is lower, I just need enough to keep one person in graphics cards and internet. I don't even drink or go out, so what little I would have left over goes further.

Welcome to the 70 year future of Generation Y: a lifetime of broken promises and lost potential!

going and doing something you are not will always have that effect on us human. i don't know how to explain it... i guess its like when we are doing something we are not agreeing with--like job we don't like or don't want--then we see it as telling others a lie, lying about who we are. i don't know how else to explain it. maybe when i am 100%(which i am not right now), then i can say something that makes sense.

doing something i love... frankly that sounds like a fairy tale ending now; past few years i've been on and off work, and before that when i did have a steady job, it was on OK one, one that i did not agree with completely but some job is better than none and it was kind of fun and all, but not what i wanted. i always wanted to do something i liked and get paid... but those require degree or two, and i the prospect of rotting in four walls chasing the slip of paper that supposedly opens doors for me, that prospect does not really attracts me.

do i dislike my life? frankly, pretty much so, yee. well, not all of it, but some of it. most things i'd not change, but some i wish would just be damned to hell and to never to be happening or even known of in my life.

the extra spark? people call "religion"... i call if faith in God, believing in God and believing God. if was not for that and not for Him, i'd probably go insane by now.

own happiness does not always come first. not in this lifetime anyways. so sometimes yes, you have to it is best to go with responsible, practical, sensible things even if it means short changing yourself.

Words to live by. Good job learning the secret to a happy life



I will do what I love, and so far it has been a lot of struggle, but soon it will all be worth it.

I suppose it's one of the age-old questions that everyone has to face, huh...
When i finished school, I trained myself hard in the humanities to get into a prestigious univercity to study journalism. I knew that the education I was going to recieve was not very important or interesting(at least to me). or practical. It simply was something I could do without much effort. Being a good journalist equals getting work experience(much more that most jobs, I dare say), getting one's communication/social skills in top shape, not reading ancient(and i'm not talking about cool stuff like Homer) literature.
But I figured out pretty quickly that even though I was good at it humanities and journalism itself(I practically breezed through the exams, earning one of the top scores, as well as getting some articles published) i realized that journalism is something I could do, but would regret it a lot later in life. I can elaborate but it would make my post about 100000 times bigger.
So after 3-4 months of psychological torture I left(to the astonishement of all my friends and relatives) and started studying Math and Physics and in 20 or so days I have to pass exams with a pretty good mark to get into the univercity I want. I like these subjects a lot more even though I really svcked at them in school due to my lazyness and partly due to educational system.
I also love music and study bass guitar. Maybe I could get somewhere with that, no idea.
So my point is: If you think you svck at something, try at least 9000 more times and get help from decent people. Then it might turn out it wasn't a lack of predespotition/talent/whatever, but rather a lack of determination.
And don't settle for easy but unsatysfying stuff. It will hurt later.

And yeah, extra-spark...I would love to see a look on everyone's faces when I succeed. And the feeling of acomplishment itself is valueable too. And the whole future would look much brighter, and it would be awesome.