On Doing what you Love

I watched the Macworld presentation of the iPhone last weekend. It was a Saturday night and I was reclined in my chair, with my feet on my desk with a big smirk on my face. I was looking at something beautiful, something simple and exceptionally smooth to handle. As state of the art goes, the iPhone is a real piece of art.

Have you seen the keynote yet? No? Go watch it. Seriously, just do it.

I'm not trying to sell you an iPhone-- I've got more profound things to talk about instead of just the iPhone. The iPhone is only just the beginning.

Seen it yet? Yes? Good.

Steve Jobs loves his iPhone, seriously (in more ways than one). This isn't just some commercial about some product that plays music, has a pretty interface and makes phone calls. It's a keynote speech about a guy in love with his product which is ascetic, simple, elegant, sexy and sophisticated. I wish I was talking about a girl, but unfortunately like the iPhone, such are few and rare (I would, of course, welcome anyone to prove me wrong!).

Steve Jobs understands something, and that something is beauty. And he loves it. His mission is to make what is beautiful, to him and to many other people, a reality. This is what people would call, "a work of love."

It isn't about the Money

Let me ask you something-- what do you wake up for everyday? I'm not talking about the things you have to do, like school, work or appointments, but suppose you had a billion dollars and thus no obligations what-so-ever, what would you wake up for? If you don't know, then I can tell for sure that you don't know what you love doing.

I spent most of my free time this week, reading about the character that is Steve Jobs. I've read a biography about him to figure out what inspired him. From what I learned of him is that he likes to make (or cultivate) useful beautiful things... and then sell them.

Steve is a rich man not unlike many of the other billionaires like Bill Gates ($53 billion), Warren Buffet ($46 billion), Lawrence Ellison ($19.5 billion) and more (link to Forbes 400 wealthiest People in America). The wealth these people command is astounding, billions of dollars. If each of us just had just say $2 million, we'd already be happy. But these people have billions, wealth that would be at least 500 times more than the amount of money that we'd be happy to live with. And these people and almost all of the other 400 people in that list are still working, with the least richest with $1 billion. It is obvious to me, that these people aren't working for money.

"Money is just a method of keeping score now. I certainly don't need more money. No one needs this much money." -- Lawrence Ellison (#4 Richest person in America)

What do you love doing?

Excuse the cliche, but this is really the "million dollar question." Sobering isn't it? Compared to billions, but yet the question remains the same. What is it that you love doing? Just for your information, Warren Buffet, the man with $46 billion is 76 years old and he is still doing what he does -- investing from his firm that is Berkshire Hathaway.

There are few of us that know from an early stage about the things we really want to do. There is one friend of mine, that knew that he wanted to be a pilot since at least 13. He is a pilot now and he loves his job. The tale of him becoming a pilot is a story in itself and it is plenty full of hard work (which I thought was pretty hard, but I've never heard him consider it that way) to get to where he is now.

It is unfortunate that many young people in schools never did have a real opportunity to figure this question out. Did you know why did you learn subjects like math, history, language, science and art when you were in grade school? The majority never did know, and without a reason, many never had a real motivation to study (except of course, to not fail or piss off your parents... and there are some that didn't care about that either).

As for me, I did pretty well in school, just because I thought solving interesting problems my teachers gave me were fun and I was happy when I got good grades. The question of "why are we doing this?" never bothered me-- I was just happy with getting good grades and I was happy to do same thing for the most part of my university career. The problem is that now is that I will be soon graduating and I have to find new things to do. And the one thing that I really wished is that I had a chance to find this out when I was younger instead of studying the usual things at school.

But for the rest of us, the ones that don't know what we really love doing right now, the answer to this question starts with another question, "How do I find that out?"

The only real answer that exists is to do it. You might not find it right away, but if you do sufficiently many things you will find it eventually. It will probably take some searching and sometimes your adventures will take you to strange places (the stranger, the better!) but you will find it eventually. How you will find it will probably never make any sense because of all the biographies of the people that figured it out, did not make a lot of sense either.

Bill Gates knew after working with his first computer for the first time, that this was something that he would love working with. Steve Jobs became fascinated with electronics after attending after-school lectures at Hewlett-Packard and was hired as a summer student there, where he would meet Steve Wozniak, and together they would create the business that is Apple. Mozart from the age of 5 could already play the piano and loved music.

I have not, in so far as I have lived, figured out a logical reason why people enjoy the things that we do. Ask all the greatest people in the world in their respective fields and I doubt that even they could offer a universal answer, because even they like different things!

My only advice to you is to go out and find it. When you've found it, do it.

It seems that Steve Jobs agrees (I found his talk to Stanford graduates after I finished writing this essay, and I recommend it as good reading).

"You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers." -- Steve Jobs