"Don't Follow Your Passion?"
Ideas for finding work you love
When
traveled to Mexico, he heard a shocking conversation:“You can’t pay people too much because they’ll stop working”
In his book The Pathless Path, he discovered a new perspective on work. He noticed that people worked to maintain their current lifestyle.
But once they made enough money, they just stopped working.
Millerd observed this not just in Mexico but across the world. At first, I was skeptical after reading this.
People actually work to live?
Shouldn’t they work more and save more money for later?
After traveling to Spain and Italy, I can confirm this perspective.
“People Just Don’t Want to Work”
I once asked an Italian girl living in Spain:
“why are the unemployment rates so high in Spain?”
She told me something I’ve never heard before: “people just don’t want to work.”
I then asked, “well then what do people do?”
She said they work if they need money. Besides that, they spend time with family, have hobbies, volunteer, go outside, and go out to bars and restaurants.
Now it all made sense to me: that’s why restaurants are filled with locals for lunch at 3 pm. That’s why the bars and restaurants are always thriving until 2 am on weekdays.
Of course people don’t go out every day. But they do value simple things: good food and a time out with friends. And by time out, it’s a not a quick 30-minute lunch. It’s a long outing. It could be 1-3 hours, with no rush to get home.
Seeing two old ladies sharing wine and cigarettes at 2 am on a weekday is something I’ll never forget.
It’s a different life.
It’s worth noting: their cost of living is lower. They make less and spend less.
You’re probably thinking what I am: work gives us purpose. It’s social, challenging, and you impact the lives of others.
But in Western Europe, there’s much less focus on work and more on leisure.
I’m not saying it’s right or wrong. It’s just extraterrestrial to American culture and the feeling that we should always be working or doing something.
It feels lazy. 1
But as I like to remind myself, it’s not wrong or right, it’s just different.
This reminds me of the parable of the Mexican Fisherman.
The Mexican Fisherman
An American businessman takes a vacation to a Mexican village on the coast.2
Unable to sleep after an urgent phone call from the office the first morning, he walked out to the pier to clear his head.
A small boat with just one fisherman had docked, and inside the boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish.
“How long did it take you to catch them?” the American asked.
“Only a little while,” the Mexican replied in surprisingly good English.
“Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” the American then asked.
“I have enough to support my family and give a few to friends,” the Mexican said as he unloaded them into a basket.
“But … What do you do with the rest of your time?”
The Mexican looked up and smiled.
“I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Julia, and stroll into the village each evening, where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life, señor.”
The American laughed and stood tall. “Sir, I’m a Harvard M.B.A. and can help you. You should spend more time fishing, and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. In no time, you could buy several boats with the increased haul. Eventually, you would have a fleet of fishing boats.”
He continued, “Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the consumers, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village, of course, and move to Mexico City, then to Los Angeles, and eventually New York City, where you could run your expanding enterprise with proper management.”
The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, señor, how long will all this take?”
To which the American replied, “15–20 years. 25 tops.”
“But what then, señor?”
The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions.”
“Millions, señor? Then what?”
“Then you would retire and move to a small coastal fishing village, where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, and stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos …”
I’m curious: what’s your takeaway?
Plan Around Lifestyle
My takeaway: live the lifestyle you want to have. Don’t think about what’s cool in society. Just ask yourself what you really want. Then work backwards from there.
It might take tinkering. It might help to ask yourself:
“If I was the only human on this planet, what would I want? What would I create? What would I do?”
If you’re young like me, it helps to think about what you don’t want. This takes time and experimentation through living. I still have lots to figure out.
As Professor Cal Newport wrote, while we think we might know what we want to do, there’s no way we can know if the job we’re after will make us content in the long run.
This is because “passion is generated by extended exposure to something that becomes an important part of your life.”
Based on his experience as a college professor, he’s found that following your passion isn’t the most useful career advice. He suggests something called lifestyle-centric planning.
Pick the lifestyle you want, then reverse engineer a job that fits it.
This saves you the time and stress of researching careers in depth.
While common advice says to “follow your passion,” this means that your long term satisfaction would solely depend on your job.
But this clearly isn’t the case. As we saw with the Mexican fisherman, he had the same lifestyle before and after he met the American from Harvard.
Instead, Newports suggests choosing a dream lifestyle, not a dream job.
Consider these factors:
How much control do I have over my schedule?
What’s the intensity level of my job?
What’s the importance of what I do?
What’s the prestige level?
Where do I live?
What’s my social life like?
What’s my work life balance?
What’s my family like?
How do other people think of me?
What am I known for?
It might take time to figure this out for yourself.
You have to experiment to see what works for you. Not what you think society, your family, or your peers want for you. Just considering these questions made me realize that medicine and I weren’t a good match.
Remember to ask yourself:
“If I was the only human on this planet, what would I want? What would I create? What would I do?”
Have a great week,
- BB
If you liked this, you’ll enjoy my daily short-form writing on Twitter. It’s where I share most of my ideas, stories, and thoughts.
Further Reading
If you liked this, you’ll also enjoy these pieces:
If You’re in Your 20s, You Must Ask Yourself This: Chasing curiosity, not résumés
I will say: the only big drawback to this lifestyle is not having challenges or striving for ambitious personal goals. As Tony Robbins says:
“The only reason we really pursue goals is to cause ourselves to expand and grow. Achieving goals by themselves will never make us happy in the long term; it's who you become, as you overcome the obstacles necessary to achieve your goals, that can give you the deepest and most long-lasting sense of fulfillment.”
I adopted this story from The Four Hour Work Week, where I first saw it. I don’t think there’s an author to the story. Just one of those great parables that’s becoming more universal in the online world.
Amazing you made these choices at such an early age! I am still trying too live this way