I’ve come to the understand that the vast majority of people sort of just do what they feel like all the time. They lack self-control and discipline and lots of other things that would be required to succeed in most areas.
In most cases, I think that when things get tough, people either lose interest, tune out, or just give up.
To get great or even good at most things requires a lot of effort and experience, and lots of of hardships.
I think most people end up finding something they are good at, and more often than not, it’s something that they are passionate about and enjoy doing.
But contrary to the popular wisdom, I think that they are only good at it because they are passionate about it.
I think that passion is what keeps them going even when things get hard. It’s the only way they can keep going, because they simply don’t have the level of self-discipline or self-awareness to continue progressing if they weren’t passionate.
I think of these guys who seem like total screw-ups in most of their life, but they have one thing they love and are actually really good at. Some of the more apparent examples are many mechanics, electricians, and other people in skilled trades.
Those things are not easy to do or to get good at, yet it wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that someone that was at the bottom of my high school class had succeeded in that field.
I certainly don’t want to come off as elitist, conceited, or judgmental here. This is just one piece of my broader understanding lately that advice that is designed to be broadly applied to the population does not really feel relevant to me or many others.
I’ve worked hard over decades to improve my self-discipline, habits, and overall performance. And now it seems that I’m at a level where most advice doesn’t seem to apply to me.
And “do what you love” sort of just feels like one of those things. I now think that’s its actually a pragmatic suggestion for finding economic success and providing value to society for those who would otherwise struggle to do so, rather than a deep nugget of wisdom designed to bring about happiness and fulfilment.
Those things may, indeed, be related, but the happiness may actually just be a secondary side-effect.
That’s also not to say that this advice wouldn’t help others, as well. It would be easier for anyone to continue through adversity if they were doing something they loved.
But it is limiting to only do things you love. Almost nobody has a love for management, scaling operations, HR, accounting, and many other crucial pieces of a functional business. Perhaps one or 2 of those things, but not all of them.
Yet the reward is great for those that successfully navigate all of them into a successful business. And that generally requires a great deal of self-discipline that allows one to push through even when things are really hard or they don’t feel at all passionate about the matter at hand.
I’ll keep thinking about the idea of most advice not being applicable and will probably keep writing about it in the future.