Do what you love? or Love what you do?

I have always been perplexed by the pandemonium created by the thought: What should one do in life- Should we like what we are doing, or should we do only what we like? Hence, the tagline- Do what you love? or Love what you do?

Our mind never stays in the present. It has a tendency to either flock to the past or to the future. That’s why it is said our mind is flickering. The idea that we like or dislike something also is reflected in our mind. Our mind is not something which just resides in some corner of the body. We often confuse ourselves that mind is our head, or forehead. No, it isn’t. In fact, our body resides in our mind. Strange isn’t it? Bhishmaraj Bam, famous sports psychologist said ‘our body is an instrument of our mind‘. What we think we are is what is reflected by the mind. Everything first gets created in mind, then it reflects in reality. That is why Steven Covey said in his book, ‘The 7 habits of highly effective people’ that all things are created twice. We also call it consciousness. In simple words, it is what we are conscious/aware about. Like for example, if it happens that we see a snake in front of us, we feel threatened. This is because of the consciousness imbibed within us which brings us emotion of fear in order to save our life. And the interesting thing is this consciousness is also subtle.

Now, when it comes to a particular interest or inclination towards something, it is also because of our mind. Our mind plays games with us. We erroneously believe that we can do something only if we like doing it. We think that we cannot give our best if we don’t like it. We read or listen to famous speeches by Steve Jobs, which tell us to simply follow our passion. And by passion, it means what we like doing. There isn’t anything wrong in it. It’s good if we know what we enjoy doing. But the problem is that it also gives a message that if we fail at something, then we easily blame that we did not like it, and so we failed. We think that it wasn’t my passion and so I failed. Then, we search for another interest or passion, and then another, and keep doing this. We give aptitude tests and the test results tells us something. But our mind tells us that it might not be what it likes. We look for the right job, right partner, right environment, and we rarely find it. As Steve Jobs reminds us in his speech, that he was incredibly lucky, but all may not be fortunate as he was. Then we get confused, and we waste our time in life. This attitude is a real problem.

The idea of ‘Do what do love‘ depends a lot on our mind. And the fact is mind never stays in the present. The mind easily gets influenced by past experiences or future outcomes. Like for example, if someone tells us that by learning a particular skill, we can become rich quickly, then we start liking it. But if that same skill becomes outdated or doesn’t make us rich, then we lose interest in it. Hence, our passion, our liking, our interests depends on a lot of factors such as social status, past experiences, peer pressure and future gains.

‘Do what you love‘ represents a rebellious attitude as well. Maybe, that’s why it suited Steve Jobs and his charisma. This is because we then tend to select only those things which we think we like, and discard the rest to be unworthy of our talent. Though this might make us focused on a specific skill, but often the parameters to choose the subject of our interest are based on our limited understanding of the world. As mentioned, if social status or money makes us select a particular profession as our passion, then it certainly won’t be our true passion. Also, the age to become aware of our passion is usually either during teenage or early adulthood. And the problem lies in the fact that our experiences about life, our knowledge about self is usually very limited until that age. It is more common for peer pressure or career aspirations as conveyed by society to act as a catalyst to influence our decision making.

On the other side, ‘love what you do’ is more accepting and not rebellious. It makes us start liking things that we do. It does not depend on the rewards or end result to be gained from the action. If we simply love what we do, then we do not care about the final result. Because it is the action which give us joy, and not the fruit which happens in case of ‘Do what you love’. Though both seems to convey similar idea, but the approach of looking towards it is different. We are more free when we love what we do. We do not depend on the societal expectation or peer pressure. We have more options and many times, in the world, it is not always a luxury to select the kind of work we might have to perform. When we have a ‘Love what you do’ attitude, it gives the confidence that we can do anything in this world. Nothing can stop us. We have the capability to achieve anything. We come to an understanding that in this world, everything can be achieved, and to do that, we need to put efforts. And efforts can only be put once we have to aptitude to like it. And the most important thing is this aptitude can be developed by this principle of ‘love what you do’.

For example, during the war, no one likes violence. But the soldiers are made motivated to fight and kill the enemy. They are inspired to love to fight and kill, even if they won’t like doing it. Because that is the need of the hour. Similarly, anything can be done, if we convince our mind about the importance of doing it, and why doing that work matters. That’s all is needed to make things work, and with this attitude, anyone can move mountains!

Hence, it is better to ‘love what we do’ which will keep us inspired to keep working, and with consistent efforts, we will get what we want.

Finally, even Steve Jobs came to this understanding as expressed through his 2005 Stanford commencement address, “And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.”