> Don't spend a single moment in life doing something you don't want to do.
This advice or its cousins are found in many places around here and, well, I have a bad feeling about it. Is it not the epitome of egoism?
Is it possible to share a house with friends, or a spouse, or your kids, without ever "doing something you don't want to do"?
And in professional life, if you are a janitor, do you "want" to clean this toilets again? If you are a coder, you will do your share of boring work because you are in a team, right? And if you are a Big Boss, do you really want to fire this poor guy who is no fit here, will be no fit in no company you can think of, and has had already his content of shit on the head?
Even a painter, or a writer, or a comics guy like Mr Oatmeal have to do sometimes some things they do not "want" to do, professionally
The only people who really can avoid doing anything they do not want to do for a long period of time are the movie superstars and kids of some people of power. I do not think they represent a suitable ideal of life, and I do not think they are more happy than more normal poeple, quite the opposite in fact.
Then there are a few short-lived exceptions, a little slice of a life that is mostly free from hassles of any sort. I experienced this state during a few months myself: I got fired from a boring job, so I had the nice French wellfare and got 70% income for nothing. I also broke with my gf. At that time nobody counted in my life, I could and I did take risks, like getting involved in knife fight. I remember the only thing I did that I did not want to do was to take the train and join my parents to meet my grand-parents. for some important occasion. I actually had to wake up early and shave... But that's not real life, that's a short and egoistic period of my life. It has been somewhat useful in build my experience, but I'd not say I was happy. And most important is I would not make a general advice out of it. Only very few people in the world are lucky enough to find themselves with no professional or familial bounds and enough money to live free-wheeling for some month.
Or maybe the split is on another line: If young Americans can claim to never do what they do not want to do, maybe it is because they use autosuggestion, also known as The Coué method* , to make themselves "want" to do what they really just "have" to do. Using autosuggestion, I could proactively "want" to clean my toddler's diapers, or smile candidly and listen to this friend's spouse, while at the same time, deep in my heart, knowing she is really the boringest person in the world and I'd rather lick the streets than listen to her blabla (but I really like this friend, would not like to lose him...)
So yes, with autosuggestion, it is possible to force oneself to love to do what we hate to do, and it is most likely what many people do. But then, you'd have to balance carefully, because it is cheating, it is lying to oneself, and pushed too far it can become a poison, I guess.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Cou%C3%A9#The_Cou.C3...