Live to work or work to live?

This is a question that many people ask implicitly or explicitly. It is a value that changes during a lifetime. Teenagers might feel work minimally to live only to become twenty-something work-aholics to become burned-out forty-somethings trying to reconnect with their families. The lucky among us find balance. But let's go back to the question, what should you do? How should you think about work?

I have the pleasure of being the dad to a wonderful teenage girl who is starting to be interested in the inevitability of work. She wants to earn enough to do stuff. She doesn't feel like she needs to live my lifestyle (yet:-). She is getting pressure from her school to think about careers. So I will lean on what I tell her as I write this entry.

I tell her she has to do two things: find something she enjoys doing a lot and be passionate about and find something that will pay the bills for the lifestyle she chooses.

In reading the first item, I think the keyword is passion. When I started working a colleague of mine said "If you are not willing to put in more than eight hours in a job, why are you willing to put in eight?" The upshot of his statement was that when we work we invest our most alert and most valuable hours of our day and we should use those hours doing something we love and are passionate about. I agree with him.

If you only work to meet your financial needs, you will be miserable. Sometimes we have to do things we would otherwise choose not to do. You need to understand this aspect of your life. However, I suspect that most of us can figure out how to do something we are passionate about and still pay the bills.

When I hire people, I look for people who have that passion. I do not want someone just paying the bills or putting in time.

So how do I answer this for myself? I live to be passionate and excited about all aspects of my life and today that includes work.

More later ...