Maybe you can't make money doing what you love
sethgodin.typepad.com
Maybe you can't make money doing what you love
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Re: Maybe you can't make money doing what you love
#2"Ars gratia artis"
Explains why great artists lived poor financially. But there are always who bring in the genius of AND with art meets living (commercial). They ofcourse are geniuses.
Re: Maybe you can't make money doing what you love
#3Two quotable quotes: "Work does not necessarily make you happy, but it may provide you the money to do the things that make you happy."
"If all you get from your job is a paycheck, you're underpaid"
I don't think it's a trade-off if you don't love your job. However, if you truly hate your job - why are you doing it?
I was a workaholic for the longest time and I still am - I am re-applying my workaholic tendencies to outside-the-cube. Software development bankrolls ventures like learning Spanish and Salsa dancing.
Re: Maybe you can't make money doing what you love
#4I think Hugh MacLeod's How To Be Creative gives this subject a better treatment. I haven't forgotten the very simple "Sex & Cash Theory." Creative people need two jobs: one is sexy, and one pays the bills.
Re: Maybe you can't make money doing what you love
#5"Doing what you love is as important as ever"
Eh. Does the sticky sugar-candy new-age optimism pouring out of blogs like this disturb only me?
It's pure bullshit. Work was NOT meant as something to love. Work was NOT mean to provide you means do things that make you happy. Take a good, hard look around at the world, dammit: work was meant to give you a chance to SURVIVE.
Perhaps some people who have very well functioning minds - very optimisting, easily get enthusiastic, easily get to love people and/or things - may eventually learn to love their work, or work on something they love.
But for most of us it's out of question. Work, therefore you hate it. Get over. Don't raise unreasonable expectations in people, please.
Re: Maybe you can't make money doing what you love
#6There are plenty of careers that meld creativity and commercial gains, like being an architect or interior designer. Don't you think an architect takes pride in seeing one of their buildings standing against the skyline?
Sure, you might not get rich making splatter paintings, but you can still be creative and make money at the same time. People will pay for things that are aesthetically pleasing.
Re: Maybe you can't make money doing what you love
#7You have to also love making money. I love making money. By definition, it is impossible for me to become unhappy if I have to make money doing what I love. /obvious.
I had a girlfriend like this: she was an excellent photographer, had a degree in fine arts with a photography specialty, but didn't want to make money doing it -- she didn't want it to become her job. This discrepancy made her miserable, not only because she generally didn't get to take pictures, and didn't get to make the money she could be making, but also because she wasn't using her degree.
I went to school for CS, not because I love it (though I do at times) but because the market forecast was good, and I wanted to retire early. What I like about programming is the freedom to innovate, to solve problems. I get to solve problems, solve puzzles with my job. That's great. When I get done working, I'll write a book -- that'll be even better.
I think it's enough to work doing something you like, to support what you love.
Re: Maybe you can't make money doing what you love
#8First "grow the economy" and now "surface your ideas". Ugh.
Re: Maybe you can't make money doing what you love
#9"That passion you have for art... perhaps making your painting commercial enough to sell will squeeze the joy out of it."
Once you cross the line of doing something to pay the bills, instead of doing it for the joy of doing it, then it becomes work. And, work, ultimately sucks.
Re: Maybe you can't make money doing what you love
#10This is another example of Seth's cookiecutter gurudom. I don't think it applies to startups at all, though.
Also, stop rehashing the same old, 'If you commercialize your art, it stops being satisfying' BS. We knew that forever ago. I think in the connected universe it is easy to to do something you love on the side AND make money from it AND be happy doing it. Like that guy who makes $2k/yr because he sold some photos to iStockphoto 10 years ago.
Not to bring ad hominem into this, but why has Seth become so un-original?