Work is infinite. That much is clear. But how does facing infinite feel? That’s where the difference lies.
I really enjoy my job. But I also know I could work 24 hours a day and still never be done. The work demands more, and that demand will never go away. But a job is just a job, and so when I look at this endless demand, I flinch a little. I realize I have to be careful. If it could, the work emerging from our company would swallow me whole.
My writing and personal projects are also infinite. There’s more of them than I could ever complete. But when I look at this vastness, I feel a little different. There’s more curiosity than skepticism. I see potential. And even though I know I’ll also never be done, the thought of spending as much time as I can with them does not seem overwhelming. After all, I’m having so much fun, I’d do it for free—and, in fact, often am. Of course, individual projects also become daunting at times. And while I was forced to make money from my own projects, some of the same dynamics that now apply to my job held true.
But there does seem to be a balance. Even if I was willing to work every waking hour at my job, I would produce little more that’s better than what I’m doing now. After a certain amount of hours each week, I’d just start resenting the work and avoiding it. As an employer, you want your employees to still have time to feed their own dreams. If they’re good, and they don’t, they’ll just leave sooner rather than later.
Similarly, barring a lottery win, it’s good that I have to go back from my dreams to reality on a regular basis. It brings a sense of pragmatism to any particular dream. It reminds me time is finite, and that progress is what counts. If I was never forced to look at life’s constraints, I could dabble forever and might never ship anything.
We keep looking for that phrase—”dream job.” But what if the dream and the job are just a happy couple? Two well-oiled halves of one perfectly functioning whole? Whichever cards you hold in this life, don’t play them against one another. Go for a combo breaker. Throw in everything you’ve got, and see if the total is not worth more than the sum of its parts.
