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martin Says:
April 4th, 2011 at 2:01 pm
I have to disagree here. i think it is possible to generate passion for ‘any job’ as long as you focus on the here and now and set measurable goals that are attainable in the nearby future. john’s problem is that his focus is in ‘far’-mode and not in ‘near’- mode.
It is my experience that anything becomes interesting if you spend enough time focussing on doing the actual job. john’s problem is his focus and this precludes him from becoming happy in any job.
On the upside, if he stays a tax consultant and learns to focus he will earn a nice bundle to be happy outside the job as well.
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C Says:
April 4th, 2011 at 3:10 pm
This is a great post and i am glad to see how your thinking has changed over the years about passion and career. personally, i feel that #2 in your list is what caused me pursue a different career path even though i “had it all” in my first field. i had an intelligent and caring boss, worked for a company i respected, i had nice co-workers, a close commute, challenging work, and it would have led to other job opportunities at other cool companies. maybe it’s asking for too much on top of all that, but my mind always wandered to the only other career i saw myself in high school mainly because i didn’t think my first field made any difference in the world. i remember sitting at my desk thinking, “this is meaningless. it doesn’t matter whether i pick this pink vs. that one. ” i remember talking about this with some co-workers and They said that the way we’re making a difference is by making kids happy through our design and also that i could fulfill my desire to make a difference by volunteering outside of work. the problem was that if what i was doing was making some faraway kid happy (which i only skeptically believed), it wasn’t enough of a difference to make my job matter to me.
So i think one needs to not only consider whether his future career is useful, but also find out what kind of a difference you want to make (direct or indirect, for example) and sometimes that will come intuitively from experiences in your future career through internships and volunteering. also another question to ask might be, “what kinds of jobs in the world have made a positive, lasting impact on my life? ” maybe that will lead you to the career path where you’ll feel like you’re making a difference in other people’s lives.
In your list, i would add something about finances. “the job does not pay you enough to cover the basics. ”
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paulien Says:
April 4th, 2011 at 3:45 pm
This is a really interesting take. i think my own job (consultand/phd student) has none of the disqualifiers. but while i agree with your disqualifiers, i also think that there is more to it.
in order for someone to love his job, the job has to have some qualifiers that match the lifestyle you want. say, if you want to help people you could be a very good carpenter but it would not make you happy. and this is a job that does have none of the disqualifiers too. so a job needs to match some or all of the things that matter to you, whatever that is. by this i mean things not related to the details of the work itself (you could help people in different ways, as doctor/teacher/trainer/car mechanic etc), but related to the effect the work has on the world and on your life.
i hope i am making myself clear enough, and thanks for an interesting post.
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Fong Says:
April 4th, 2011 at 4:47 pm
Doesn’t this just go back to how dan pink defined motivation (in terms of a job) consisting of 3 factors which if all satisfied, should be able to make one intrinsically self motivated?
1. autonomy: (do the job the way you want to do it, when you want to do it, and how you want to do it. )obviously, this can’t always apply to every position where time and people are out of your control, such as a baggage handler.
2. mastery: doing what you do well with the opportunities to become better. as you’ve mentioned in past posts, passion is achieved through mastery.
3. purpose: being part of something greater than yourself.
Of course, this is all based on self determination theory and the concept of flow, the latter of which was founded Many years ago by hungarion sociologist mihaly csikszentmihalyi. if you can achieve flow in the task and find autonomy, mastery and purpose, then you are in a rare position indeed.
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Susan Says:
April 4th, 2011 at 5:43 pm
Just last week, my tax lawyer told me he doesn’t like to pay taxes and that is why he loves his job. i was definitely surprised to hear his enthusiasm and realize he genuinely did love his job challenging the irs. he helps his clients and gets a lot of satisfaction doing it. i know he has helped me through a worrisome audit due to the irs retroactively disallowing a deduction. john may not be looking at a bigger picture. fewer taxes mean more money for expansion and growth — and more jobs.
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Ben Says:
April 4th, 2011 at 10:05 pm
I’m not sure that either of the first 2 points necessarily disqualify passion. in an earlier article you had mentioned an amy wrzesniewski (which i probably just spelled wrong). i had actually written a paper largely influenced by her work, and one of the most interesting studies she conducted involved hospital cleaners, a field that certainly fulfills the criteria of 1. she noted that while some hospital cleaners were clearly dissatisfied, Others were quite happy, a phenomenon she attributed to their approach towards their work.
The second scenario also doesn’t necessarily cause dislike (i changed the phrasing because i cannot envision a situation in which it wouldn’t disqualify passion, but i think it more than possible that one exists). in this instance i call to mind people with absolutely vile jobs, like those that work in slaughterhouses. in order to preserve psychological well-being, it is absolutely possible that people, over time, change their view of their “bad” job to see it in a “good” light.
I’m not sure how convincing these points are (i am certainly not convinced), nor how clearly i stated them, but well… there They are.
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Ben Says:
April 4th, 2011 at 10:09 pm
As an afterthought to that above post, the scenario with the cleaners would seem to challenge your conception of passion, cal. in this case, the cleaners were passionate about their jobs because They felt They had value to the patients and not necessarily due to any particular mastery (the satisfied cleaners did work better, but this seemed to be a result of their passion, as the improved quality was due to interaction with each other and synchronization with other hospital staff)
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fahad Says:
April 5th, 2011 at 2:13 am
I think that you got those qualifiers wrong. i generally follow nassim taleb’s black swan idea and focus on “you don’t know that you don’t know”. for example if you’re in a job, then you really can’t predict what kind of opportunities surround you, what’s the future going to be like in the job etc etc.
You gave an example of a baggage handler. i personally know of a baggage handler who migrated to dubai in the 1980s as a young kid and the only work he could find was to carry baggages at the old run down airport in extreme desert heat. now dubai in the 1980s was a small desert town with nothing to really look forward to. but slowly the small desert town started to boom. the guy handling the baggages slowly started to progress and hired more guys eventually expanding his business to the dubai container terminal and then moving into the container lifting business. his company now operates in dubai and singapore and his company operated cranes are at work at different building sites around the world.
I think you’ve been lead astray by some of your friends. the best way to do a job is not to think in terms of passion. treat a job as a job and don’t take it seriously, the world around you would change and the job you’re doing wouldn’t even exist a few year down the line. look at all those finance quatitative analyst who can’t find a job now. the world changes and jobs come and go. look for opportunities instead and have a purpose and passion to life which is outside of your work.
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fahad Says:
April 5th, 2011 at 2:20 am
@martin
martin’s got it mostly right. the future is too unpredictable, focus on the here and now. i am sure all those nuclear engineers are right now busy pulling their hairs as They realize that the nuclear industry is going to go through a really rough phase and may even get shut down. just two months ago, everyone was saying that nuclear was the way to go. the world changes very very quickly. don’t live in the future. here and now is the way to go.
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James Hayton Says:
April 5th, 2011 at 11:21 am
It usually depends who you work with, as much as the job itself. i’ve done more or less the same job in two different places, but one was infinitely better than the other simply because my boss listened to me.
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Gary Says:
April 5th, 2011 at 12:01 pm
I have been reading a lot about personality and how up to as much as 50% of our personality is fixed(or at least very very difficult to change). see helen e. fisherand daniel nettle. based on this, i would add number 4 which is that is does not fit with your personality.
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Gary Says:
April 5th, 2011 at 12:20 pm
Sorry, posted before completing. i would say – the work really does not fit with your personality. it is the extreme cases where this occurs, such as an true introvert doing lots of public speaking for example. for most people though, in my books, cal’s philosophy is accurate – working right trumps finding the right work
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homes Says:
April 5th, 2011 at 12:37 pm
I’m afraid that not everyone has the luxury to spend time looking for jobs which ignite a burning passion, or allow them to develop rare and valuable skills – some people really need the money first and foremost.
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Eric Says:
April 5th, 2011 at 1:18 pm
So, if everyone listened to this advice, we would have no tax consultants or baggage handlers or (insert undesirable job here)?
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Study Hacks Says:
April 5th, 2011 at 8:25 pm
So, if everyone listened to this advice, we would have no tax consultants or baggage handlers or (insert undesirable job here)?
The argument “it wouldn’t be practical for everyone in the world to follow this advice” applies to basically any self-improvement argument. in other words, it’s not that interesting to note. not everyone, for example, has the ability to save 10% of their income for retirement: yet this is still useful advice. not everyone has the time affluence to exercise every day or the finances to eat healthy: yet this is still useful advice. and so on.
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Study Hacks Says:
April 5th, 2011 at 8:32 pm
I have to disagree here. I think it is possible to generate passion for any job as long as you focus on the here and now and set measurable goals that are attainable in the nearby future. Johns problem is that his focus is in far-mode and not in near- mode.
This doesn’t match my experience.
In your list, i would add something about finances. the job does not pay you enough to cover the basics.
Definitely a good rule! but probably orthogonal to feeling passionate about the work? i. e. , it’s possible to feel wildly passionate for a volunteer gig.
She noted that while some hospital cleaners were clearly dissatisfied, Others were quite happy, a phenomenon she attributed to their approach towards their work.
It’s an interesting study. i need to read it closer, but i think what “happy” means here might be something different than what we imagine when think about feeling passion toward our career.
The guy handling the baggages slowly started to progress and hired more guys eventually expanding his business to the dubai container terminal and then moving into the container lifting business.
Fair enough. this example probably applies to Many different manual labor jobs: it’s always possible to expand from employee to boss and then from there the sky’s the limit.
Based on this, i would add number 4 which is that is does not fit with your personality.
I wonder if this can be integrated with 2: They both seem to deal with somewhat person-specific traits.
Im afraid that not everyone has the luxury to spend time looking for jobs which ignite a burning passion,
See my above comment regarding the critique that “this advice cannot apply to every person in the world. ”
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Will Ferguson Says:
April 5th, 2011 at 11:20 pm
This is more tailored to your recent book, but what if i’m interested in something that doesn’t provide me Many opportunities for distinguishment in high school, such as writing fiction? i don’t want to feign an interest in the sciences for more opportunities, but it seems, sadly, that this is the only way to go.
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Ron Says:
April 5th, 2011 at 11:41 pm
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the day to day social environment of a workplace as a factor in job/career fulfillment. does the job have a lack of human interaction, or is most of the human contact that happen toxic? is one able to make genuine, trusted friends at work?
Human beings are social animals. there’s a reason people go crazy in solitary confinement in prison. on the same token, is sitting in a cubicle staring at a glowing screen 9, 10, 11, 12 hours a day like most modern office jobs that much better?
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Beth Says:
April 6th, 2011 at 9:57 am
Is there really no way for him to distinguish himself by developing rare and valuable skills? i know that things are probably very different in the us, but both my parents trained as accountants and work in tax and are actually the only people i know who genuinely love their jobs. i think a lot of their enjoyment comes from the fact that They do have fairly rare skills and They’re insanely good at what They do. my mum works within the oil industry as a tax manager and has been headhunted by other firms plenty of times, whilst my dad is director of personal tax at an accountancy firm. both started out in fairly boring jobs and got to where They are through specialising in a particular field.
Also, i may be a little bit cynical in regards to #3 but what job doesn’t force you to work with assholes at one point or another?
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Michael A. Robson Says:
April 6th, 2011 at 9:58 am
In this hypothetical, i’m wondering… if you really don’t like tax accountancy, why would you do it? pressure from mom and dad, i suppose. change what you measure, to find new motivation in your work.
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Franz Wiesbauer Says:
April 6th, 2011 at 12:37 pm
Hey cal, great post as always. i partly agree. i think what most people are trying to get is job-happiness. i like the way martin seligman thinks about this topic (watch a summary here: http://www. ted. Com/talks/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psychology. html). he says that there are three levels of happiness:
1. the pleasant life: happiness that is derived from physical pleasures, travel etc.
2. the good life: happiness that is derived from flow – as mihaly csikszentmihalyi defines it. this is the type of happiness one can attain by practicing a certain subject and by becoming really good at it. as i understand it, this is close to what you are talking a lot about on the blog.
3. the meaningful life: happiness derived from having a higher purpose and meaning.
From my experience, passion derives a lot from #3. It’s more than just enjoying the actual work. It’s alignment of your job with your values and goals in life. I think you kind of acknowledge this fact (reversely) when you say “The job focuses on something you think is useless or perhaps even actively bad for the world”. So in my understanding of the word, you are a believer of passion nonetheless 
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ChristianKl Says:
April 6th, 2011 at 2:05 pm
I have been reading a lot about personality and how up to as much as 50% of our personality is fixed
The claims isn’t that 50% is fixed. They claim that in our society 50%* of the variation in personality is due to genetics.
*i use 50% for the sake of the argument. different traits will have different percentages.
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Ashish Says:
April 6th, 2011 at 6:10 pm
I completely disagree with the premise that passion follows mastery. Well, maybe i also disagree with the implication that one can develop true “mastery” in a field in which one is not passionate, though in chess it does happen – and those players leave the game.
Some people (i am one) love to think of the big picture, of ideas, in broad strokes. Others love nothing more than detail. (i work in silicon valley. Many engineers are this way. )They often lose sight of the forest for the trees, but They love those trees, and They’re really good at doing their tree thing.
Big picture people and detail people are not interchangeable. They never will be.
I can absolutely imagine being happy as a tax consultant. but the tax consultants and the massage therapists of this world are very different people. Knowing yourself takes a certain number of years of life, and a certain number of mistakes made.
As an aside, every career in the real world involves dealing with assholes to some extent.
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Sarah Kim Says:
April 7th, 2011 at 11:59 am
This helped. i have to take ib diploma next year and and am currently in the midst of choosing my hl’s. i am deciding between history and biology, and peers keep telling to do histroy because i “love” it and i’m not a “science” person but taking bio could open up arenas.
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Neuroscientist Says:
April 8th, 2011 at 5:08 pm
I agree with franz. and i think by saying that you cannot feel passionate about “the job [that] focuses on something you think is useless”, you accept that there’s such thing as ‘pre-existing calling’. for example, a scientist may not be happy about his job because he thinks the field he’s working on is useless. you know that people can easily feel that way toward an arbitrary academic field esp. those fields that do not have and may never have tangible applications in the real world. or, even though the field is useful, it may not be useful in the way that the individual cares about. so when you get a job that doesn’t match your passion, you are not motivated to pursue mastery. this criterion goes against your argument that passion follows mastery.
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Link love (Powered by shortbread and monochrome stripes) | Musings of an Abstract Aucklander (Pingback) Says:
April 10th, 2011 at 1:29 am
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Library reads – retirement edition | Single Mom Rich Mom (Pingback) Says:
April 11th, 2011 at 11:57 am
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On Finding The “Right” Extracurriculars | practicalpremed (Pingback) Says:
May 3rd, 2011 at 9:44 pm
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