We have all heard repeatedly that to be successful and happy we should do what we love. Many, many people that I have spoken to over the years have shared the joy and triumph they have felt by making their passion into their profession. Strangely and somewhat sadly, what I have come to find in my own life is that when I try to make my passion into a profession, I end up profoundly unhappy.
I have found that what I once loved to do becomes a "must" and a "should", and we all know how I feel about those! The joy and excitement that I had once associated with scrapbooking became dread and frustration when I began scrapping and designing as a business. As time progressed I became more and more confused, as an activity that I once found freeing began to represent restriction and struggle as I was trying to build it into a business.
Now that I have returned to scrapbooking and paper crafting as a hobby I am once again hopelessly in love with paper and embellishments and I look forward to all the little moments that I get to play with my stash of scrapping goodies.
Okay, so maybe that wasn't what I was supposed to be doing according to the Universe and God. I can buy that. So, I tried something else.
Last year I began working towards making my writing a full time profession. I have been writing since I could hold a pencil, and I actually wrote my first novel at the age of 9. It was a horrible piece of work, but I spent every night that summer watching Yankee baseball and typing my heart out on an ancient manual typewriter. That summer is one of my favorites ever!
Upon beginning the process of being a professional writer, something began to change. While I loved being able to dedicate time to writing because it was "work", and not goofing off in some way, over time the familiar frustration began to set in. Why wasn't my writing catching on as well as I had hoped? I began to doubt my skill and worthiness. Anxiety became associated with my love of writing and my passion for words.
Once that happened, the love started to become overshadowed by the doubt and I was not a happy girl anymore.
In the meantime, my job presented me with a role that allowed me to perform functions that bring me pleasure and enjoyment or at the very least give me a sense of fulfillment. At the end of each day, while I may be frustrated or a bit stressed I find that I am actually happy in my job and that I am doing what I love.
So this all makes me wonder...
Does doing what you love mean to take a hobby or activity that you love and turn it into a profession? Does it mean to find roles that allow you to do enough enjoyable tasks that allow you to create a happy and joyful, yet productive and lucrative life?
Maybe I'm just too sensitive about my creative pursuits to allow them to become something that I am judged by either through criticism or mere web popularity. Perhaps it was just too much like being told I had an ugly or stupid child. Whatever the case, I know that it did not work out for me at all.
For now I will concentrate on loving my job, and enjoying my passions on an amateur basis, and maybe someday down the road they will meet and I will be pleasantly surprised.
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