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Or DON’T Do What You Love
The belief “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” has created a spectrum of hypocrisy.
What’s curious about “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” is that it makes it sound like working is bad, which is the most un-American sentiment there is. In fact, Americans tend to believe work is what determines our morality and worthiness, so what drives the DWYL idea?
I once took a job at Whole Foods. I lasted three days. My co-workers were great, I liked the customers and the work itself was fine, but I came up against two big problems: the scheduling and the pain in my feet. Retail scheduling is brutal because there’s no regular pattern to your hours, but the foot pain. It started in hour four of my first seven-hour shift. Afterwards I hobbled to the train, grateful to sit. My feet were so sore I dreaded arriving at my stop and having to walk from the station to my apartment. On the second day, the pain started in hour two. After the third shift, I quit, unutterably grateful for the education that allowed me to move on to a job I could do sitting down.
Whole Foods taught me it’s okay to live for the end of the shift, especially for those without the privilege to choose between industries. Around that time I read an article by Miya Tokumitsu…
