Great work
You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work.
And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle. 1
- Steve Jobs
Unproductive pleasure pall eventually. After a while you get tired of lying on the beach. If you want to stay happy, you have to do something.
To be happy I think you have to be doing something you not only enjoy, but admire. You have to be able to say, at the end, wow, that's pretty cool.2
- Paul Graham
Drive and commitment
Finding what you love, what you believe is great work, to do means deep personal commitment.
The people who do great work with less ability but who are committed to it, get more done that those who have great skill and dabble in it, who work during the day and go home and do other things and come back and work the next day. They don't have the deep commitment that is apparently necessary for really first-class work.3
People tend to be most productive when they’re doing what they like. "If your work is not your favorite thing to do, you'll have terrible problems with procrastination. You'll have to force yourself to work, and when you resort to that the result are distinctly inferior."2
Readings
- The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius by Paul Graham
- How to Work Hard by Paul Graham
- A Project of One’s Own by Paul Graham
- What Doesn’t Seem Like Work? by Paul Graham, 8 min read
Footnotes
Footnotes
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How to Do What You Love by Paul Graham, 25 min read ↩ ↩2