Do What You Love

Things I Wish I Knew as a Kid

Love What You Do

It’s a pretty strange thing, nearing 40. As a child, 40 years old sounded ancient and I couldn’t imagine anything worthwhile coming with age. But as each year passes, I find myself falling more in love with my life and my decisions, even though they look nothing like I’d imagined. There are, however, so many things I wish I knew early on but to be fair, it’s not that no one told me. For me, it was more of a slow unveiling and self discovery.

My career had always been tricky, elusive even. My path didn’t come naturally and was the source of so much agony. It felt like I constantly found myself discovering what I didn’t want to do. Growing up, my interests were in the Arts. Creating. Organizing. Problem solving. Careers in teaching, nutrition and psychology fascinated me but were discouraged due to lack of potential income. Teachers didn’t make much and with a degree in nutrition I’d likely be preparing school lunches or meals for inmates. In Psychology, income is limited by time as there are only so many hours in the day.

Eventually, I settled on Marketing. It was business-related and reasonable. After finishing university, I hated every minute. Tortuous sales positions were my worst nightmare. Years of feeling bored and unfulfilled quickly passed and at some point I began asking myself, “If money was no object and judgement didn’t exist, how would you spend your working hours?”

Over time I came to the realization that there’s nothing more rewarding than doing what you love. Passion is both visible and contagious; you can see it in someone’s face and hear it in their voice. When you’re passionate, hard work comes easy. You invest the time needed to advance and passion inevitably leads to more cash in your pocket and higher satisfaction. But finding a passion that also pays the bills is life’s true challenge (or at least it was mine).

One day, out of the blue teaching overseas caught my eye. It had always been a dream of mine to be a teacher and this was my opportunity. Within a few months, I was on a plane to South Korea. Teaching English Overseas was the first time I truly enjoyed my work. It was challenging and exciting and opened my eyes to so many other opportunities and experiences. It also gave me the confidence boost I needed knowing that I could be successful in my work life.

After four years in Korea, I returned to the states to earn a Master’s Degree in Interior Design. This was the next logical step but a risky one. Graduate school was fast-paced and interesting but didn’t really prepare me for the real world of design. Three years in, I enjoy what I do each day but still yearn for more (which might be why I have such itchy travel feet). Although maybe with time my passion will grow.

Through everything I’ve reached one conclusion: be brave enough to do what you love, even if it takes 20 years and $100,000 trying on careers that don’t make sense. One of my favorite authors, Malcolm Gladwell, wrote about the “10,000-Hour Rule” in Outliers: The Story of Success. Gladwell claims the answer to mastering any skill is reaching 10,000 hours of practice. Once you hit the mark, you’re officially an expert. But as amazing as that sounds I think I’m okay with not being an expert in just one thing, but rather a Jill of all trades.