We are told to 'do what we love' in life and our careers. Is that a fallacy? | Open thread

A recent commentary in Jacobin raises the question of whether young people are being fed a lie about following their passionMany 20 and 30-somethings (if not those older and younger than that) grew up hearing the advice that all you need to do in life is "find your passion". The implication is that if you "do what you love" (in shorthand: DWYL), success – and presumably happiness and money – would follow. People like Apple's Steve Jobs and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg were held up as examples (if not gurus) of this "DWYL" trend, alongside people who quit investment banking jobs to become cheese farmers, plumbers or yoga entrepreneurs. But writer and art history scholar Miya Tokumitsu argues that this romanticized notion of the working world is a dangerous fallacy. It's the modern-day equivalent of the emperor's new clothes myth.In a much shared commentary for Jacobin magazine (later re-printed on Slate.com), Tokumitsu writes:DWYL is a secret handshake of the privileged and a worldview that disguises its elitism as noble self-betterment. According to this way of thinking, labor is not something one does for compensation but is an act of love. If profit doesn't happen to follow, presumably it is because the worker's passion and determination were insufficient. Its real achievement is making workers believe their labor serves the self and not the marketplace.She points out that the vast majority of jobs have no place in the DWYL world because they are "done out of motives or... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2014-01-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In ALA Opener, Michael Eric Dyson Delivers Stirring Case for Diversity

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-06-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Food for Thought: Shauna Niequist Savors A Simpler Life

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-06-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Sir Terence Conran's Life in Design to Octopus

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[ The Bookseller | 2016-06-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Daunt Books to open in Marlow

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[ The Bookseller | 2016-06-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Artists Turned Apple's App Store Guidelines Into A Lovely Comic Book

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[ Fast Company | 2016-06-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Waterstones to close two stores but open one in Wimbledon

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[ The Bookseller | 2016-06-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Vintage indie competition now open to Irish booksellers

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[ The Bookseller | 2016-06-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Mitchell Kaplan Opens Book-Bike Shop Hybrid in Miami

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Odedina to take open submissions at Pushkin

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[ The Bookseller | 2016-06-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Australian booksellers fight government move for 'open market'

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Friedman steps down as c.e.o of Open Road

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BBC relaunches Love To Read campaign at Hay

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Accent Press to open bookshop in Cardiff’s creative quarter

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Canadian Press Breathes New Life into Aboriginal Languages

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-05-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Ardagh pens open letter to Simon Cowell

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