Doing Something Because You Love It
I truly understood the meaning of this phrase just yesterday.
It was 3.30pm and I received a text asking if I could substitute for a Zumba Class. In a heartbeat, I said yes. I then found out that the session would be at 5.30pm and to get there would mean a half hour drive during rush hour. Between 3.45 and 5.30pm, there was only the slightest hint of doubt and I recognized it as coming from a place of habit, not actual worry. My well oiled, anxious, inner voice got little in return when it tried to light fires with “what if its a bad class”, “what if it turns out to be a waste of money”, “what if everyone hates the choreo”. I don’t fear forgetting steps anymore which is a huge win. Anyway, none of these presented scenarios had any follow up negative thoughts. I had no energy to give these flimsy doubts, because I was overpowered by the force of uninhibited passion. I am too happy to perform my Zumba choreo. Very little can change that.
I want to arrest this episode in a blog post because although I claim to have always done what I desired to do, I have rarely experienced this kind of blissful abandon. It seems that when you are in it because you love it, just the love for it fuels you. If this were a videography or an editing gig, I would have felt worried. There is a nervous excitement but there’s many, many other thoughts too and none of those are so easily silenced. I can never bring that beginner’s mindset of what is there to lose to a production job. There is an incredible amount of attachment when it is a gig that is related to my qualifications. When it is a production gig, I’m concerned about whether I will be good enough, whether I’m going to be paid enough. There is uncertainty and a bit of insecurity all around.
I have a lot of videos to show for production work. I have successfully managed to see projects start to finish, everyone has come out of it happy — client, audience and my team. Yet when the next project comes my way, it starts all over again.
Video production was never something I chose purely because of passion.
I thought it was a great idea because it guaranteed never being bored and always being full of possibility. It was a calculated approach to creativity. I saw it as a place where all my talents — writing, storytelling, acting, singing, dance — could come together. When I read that last sentence, I can see now what I never saw then: I have always been a natural performer. These were the gigs that always felt effortless, the ones where no form of rejection could impact my spirit.
I happen to know a few people who have had one love, a love so strong that it required no validation and fueled itself. They are the ones being referred to in this quote: “Do what you love, and you’ll never work another day in your life.” This is the wisdom passed down to my generation by jaded, status quo elders and in that way, we began to put everything we loved to test. Can it be financially viable… a side hustle? Earlier we accepted that work existed for the purpose of paying bills and contributing in some way to the functioning of society. Hobbies were pursued during free time.
Hobbies thus were free from any sort of validation or expectation and were unconditionally loved.
We loved this feeling and decided to chase it head on. This is how the gig economy started, with a desire to only do what you loved. But the core components of that experience- being expectation free — is not realistic in case of a job. If you are a singer (hobby turned full time job), it is hard to not care about bills, stability, fair payment and other things that earlier were ‘work problems’. The love comes at a price.
I never gave any of ‘my loves’ a fair go and so thought I was smart to have, in a way, foreseen this. I tried to combine my loves (through filmmaking). My many interests were given side hustle status and while some may think that’s a tragedy, I feel like it helped keep things pure.
There are no mistakes on either side of the coin. It is okay if your side hustle feels breezy and organic while your day job makes you nervous. With high stakes comes anxiety. But if I can bring a little bit of the uninhibited zeal of my Zumba persona to my day job, I win both ways. Let hobbies inspire us to be better in our work lives. How about that option too, instead of hobbies fully turning into hustles?
