I don't think it is possible to live a life doing only what you love. Doing what you love invariably leads to what you don't and what you don't leads, one way or another, to what you do.
We watched another episode of "Rosemary and Thyme" last night. One of the pair of gardener/detectives is a scholar, not married and has no children. The other has had an unpleasant divorce but has a fully-grown son. He is a policeman and she used to be, too. Last night, they not only found the obligatory body in the garden they are contracted to improve but also found a baby, abandoned but alive. The long-time childless woman oohed and aahed while weighing whether she should have married that guy back then. The divorced mother was far less emotionally involved. The scholar soon found that the odd hours newborns keep and the difficulty of meeting their needs and even communicating successfully with them all amounted to quite an ordeal. Suddenly, motherhood didn't seem like such a good deal.
I have never been a mother but I have been closely associated with them since before I was born. I get the impression that mothers often become mothers without fully intending to. I realize that some mothers had to work carefully and deliberately to become parents. I am confident that no parent of either sex ever went through all of life without at sometime or other wondering if parenting was worth the trouble. ('Course, most of us think it was clearly worth the trouble our own parents went to for us.)
I am interested in what amount of gain in energy, efficiency, dedication and creativity, not to mention wealth, that comes to those for find a way to do what they like doing (or find a way to like doing what they do). The book "Do What You Love and The Money Will Follow" by Marsha Sinetar is more or less about this subject. The first negative review of the book seems a good one to me. C.S. Lewis remarks somewhere that there is an enormous difference between the 5 yr. old boy fascinated by an airplane flying over and a grown, competent pilot who has mastered and practices aviation.
Where this topic comes up in my life is teaching. I like teaching but it was apparent to me that many college students didn't like the life of a student. I feel that a very good portion of the students on any campus, especially a public one, are there because they have been told it will lead to a good life. Statistics basically bear that idea out, I guess, in terms of lifelong income. But since some friends of mine actually taught short courses to teachers on the opportunities for high school grads other than going to college, I am aware of many such. Attending 12 years of compulsory schooling is hard enough and many people who thrive on activity and motion and genuine challenge just cannot face more desks, more books and more homework. Especially so at their biological and sexual peak, when family chores and working for pay can be very enjoyable.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
We watched another episode of "Rosemary and Thyme" last night. One of the pair of gardener/detectives is a scholar, not married and has no children. The other has had an unpleasant divorce but has a fully-grown son. He is a policeman and she used to be, too. Last night, they not only found the obligatory body in the garden they are contracted to improve but also found a baby, abandoned but alive. The long-time childless woman oohed and aahed while weighing whether she should have married that guy back then. The divorced mother was far less emotionally involved. The scholar soon found that the odd hours newborns keep and the difficulty of meeting their needs and even communicating successfully with them all amounted to quite an ordeal. Suddenly, motherhood didn't seem like such a good deal.
I have never been a mother but I have been closely associated with them since before I was born. I get the impression that mothers often become mothers without fully intending to. I realize that some mothers had to work carefully and deliberately to become parents. I am confident that no parent of either sex ever went through all of life without at sometime or other wondering if parenting was worth the trouble. ('Course, most of us think it was clearly worth the trouble our own parents went to for us.)
I am interested in what amount of gain in energy, efficiency, dedication and creativity, not to mention wealth, that comes to those for find a way to do what they like doing (or find a way to like doing what they do). The book "Do What You Love and The Money Will Follow" by Marsha Sinetar is more or less about this subject. The first negative review of the book seems a good one to me. C.S. Lewis remarks somewhere that there is an enormous difference between the 5 yr. old boy fascinated by an airplane flying over and a grown, competent pilot who has mastered and practices aviation.
Where this topic comes up in my life is teaching. I like teaching but it was apparent to me that many college students didn't like the life of a student. I feel that a very good portion of the students on any campus, especially a public one, are there because they have been told it will lead to a good life. Statistics basically bear that idea out, I guess, in terms of lifelong income. But since some friends of mine actually taught short courses to teachers on the opportunities for high school grads other than going to college, I am aware of many such. Attending 12 years of compulsory schooling is hard enough and many people who thrive on activity and motion and genuine challenge just cannot face more desks, more books and more homework. Especially so at their biological and sexual peak, when family chores and working for pay can be very enjoyable.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
