You might want to try it from the other side for a while. It can actually be quite nice to have a job that does nothing other than provide money to pursue your true passions.
For most of my 20's, my life revolved entirely around rock climbing. 4 nights a week in the gym, and a roadtrip every weekend. Vacation time saved up (and exceeded) for trips to Europe, Asia and the Desert Southwest in search of good rock and good times. My friends were all doing the same thing, and those were actually some of the best years of my life.
Now, I'd deeply into building software products to maximize my free time. Not surprisingly, the skills I'm using today are the ones I picked up during those years of paying the bills. The outside pursuits are still a major part of my life (I'm typing this from the climbing mecca of Kalymnos, Greece), but now I have several months a year to pursue them instead of just a few weeks.
So maybe you should take another look at those guys. They just might be leading interesting lives while you're not looking.
I can related to that experience. For a significant part of my professional life, my day job was there to provide a paycheck to feed my addiction/passion to the martial arts. At 5 o clock I was out the door and for the next 3 hours it would be martial arts training and conditioning. I would train and compete and travel for competition. Work was just work and a paycheck so I could do what I really wanted. Although I did enjoy software development, it was strictly only at work.
At the time I would look at people who only had their career and career related activities and friends to be missing out on more interesting pursuits.
Great post. Not everyone's passion is profitable, but that doesn't make it less worthwhile. Of course, there are people not pursuing passions at all, so this post still has value.
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You might want to try it from the other side for a while. It can actually be quite nice to have a job that does nothing other than provide money to pursue your true passions.
For most of my 20's, my life revolved entirely around rock climbing. 4 nights a week in the gym, and a roadtrip every weekend. Vacation time saved up (and exceeded) for trips to Europe, Asia and the Desert Southwest in search of good rock and good times. My friends were all doing the same thing, and those were actually some of the best years of my life.
Now, I'd deeply into building software products to maximize my free time. Not surprisingly, the skills I'm using today are the ones I picked up during those years of paying the bills. The outside pursuits are still a major part of my life (I'm typing this from the climbing mecca of Kalymnos, Greece), but now I have several months a year to pursue them instead of just a few weeks.
So maybe you should take another look at those guys. They just might be leading interesting lives while you're not looking.
I can related to that experience. For a significant part of my professional life, my day job was there to provide a paycheck to feed my addiction/passion to the martial arts. At 5 o clock I was out the door and for the next 3 hours it would be martial arts training and conditioning. I would train and compete and travel for competition. Work was just work and a paycheck so I could do what I really wanted. Although I did enjoy software development, it was strictly only at work.
At the time I would look at people who only had their career and career related activities and friends to be missing out on more interesting pursuits.
Great post. Not everyone's passion is profitable, but that doesn't make it less worthwhile. Of course, there are people not pursuing passions at all, so this post still has value.
Either you are passionate and keen on learning or not. I don't believe the mentioned coworkers wear one mask at work and another at home.