“Find joy in everything you choose to do. Every job, relationship, home…It’s your responsibility to love it, or change it.”
– Chuck Palahniuk
Why is it that we do things that we hate?
In most situations, it’s quite likely that you started doing a dreaded thing out of great hope and excitement. Maybe it’s your job. Maybe it’s your studies. Maybe it’s a hobby that you’ve invested a lot of time and money into. You thought you would really love doing what you do. But as it turned out, it makes you miserable instead.
We often fall in love with the idea of something, instead of what it really is. We overvalue how we feel about something, and undervalue how it actually makes us feel.
It’s like hearing a few Metallica songs and then simply deciding that you want to be a musician. Surely, you would later realize the sheer amount of work and complexities that being a musician involves — the countless hours of practice, the inevitable drama with your bandmates, the trouble in coming up with music that’s worth caring about. It’s definitely not as simple and ideal as getting onstage and rocking out in front of thousands of die-hard fans who are screaming your name.
A couple of months back, I met Steve Vai, who is one of the world’s most renowned guitar virtuosos. During his pre-show Q and A session, someone in the audience asked him about “how to build a connection with music”. In answering that question, Steve differentiated between having a genuine love for something, and having an egotistic fantasy.
He explained that in genuinely loving something, we love it for its own sake. We are in love with the process itself, that we find a great sense of fulfillment in going through the tedious hardships involved.
He related with his own pivotal experiences, such as his first time seeing someone play the guitar, or figuring out how music theory worked. It wasn’t so much that he dreamed of becoming a famous musician or a virtuoso. But it felt as though a whole new dimension had opened its doors for him whenever he retreated into music.
Every time he studies, practices and performs music, he gets to be in touch with that same childlike euphoria. He doesn’t care how difficult the process gets, because it’s always fun.
On the other hand, he explained that having an egotistic fantasy is when you fall in love with — you guessed it — the idea of being something. Rather than loving the process for what it is, we are in love with the image we have dreamed up of ourselves, or the material outcomes we might get, such as making a lot of money or being seen as cool.
These sort of egotistic fantasies are pretty much the bedrock of conventional self-help advice, especially goal-setting. But what’s the big deal? How can these egotistic fantasies or goals be counterproductive, or even detrimental for us?
Well, we rarely hear about the many people who lived their dream of opening their own businesses, only to close them down because they decided that they were happier sticking to their 9-to-5 lifestyle. We rarely hear about the many people who achieved their goal of quitting smoking, only to relapse even after a long while.
Pursuing egotistic fantasies is rarely fulfilling. I mean, that’s what you get when you treat the process as merely a means to an end.
Steve put it this way. He explained that he has met plenty of young wannabe musicians over the years who came up to him with very specific goals, like, “I want to be a guitar virtuoso” like himself. But what Steve has seen with so many people with these goals is that they only end up miserable.
They may actually get what they want, but they would have to suffer through the process. And when they do get there, their sense of fulfillment is fleeting and momentary. So, a lot of these people would end up filling their void with addictions and vices, or worse, killing themselves.
To this I may add: willpower is finite. You can only force yourself to perform a dreaded behavior for so long. As soon as you achieve your goal, it’s very likely that you would no longer feel the need to do the things that led you there. And you’d revert to your old ways.
Contrarily, when you genuinely love something, you consistently and sustainably feel fulfilled when you go through the everyday process.
As an added benefit, having this genuine love allows you to be more authentic in your work, too. Because when you’re not so fixated on the outcome, you’re not as worried about replicating your past successes. You allow yourself that much-needed freedom to be yourself, to experiment, to take risks and create art that you actually like.
For Steve Vai, this has always been the trajectory of his music career. He would often remind himself, and others, to create music as if no one would ever hear it. As a byproduct, he has incorporated unique styles and techniques into his music, cementing himself as one of the most distinctive guitarists out there.
But do understand that it is okay to make the mistake of doing what we don’t enjoy, though. Because figuring out what we love to do isn’t always so straightforward or obvious. Through trial and error, we get to learn more about ourselves, particularly the sort of endeavors that are best aligned with our personality and interests.
But nevertheless, there is one important thing that we can do to make this soul-searching process much easier. And that is, to reflect on what our values are.
Let me give you an example.
I’ve always loved Japanese history and culture, especially from the feudal period. I particularly loved learning about the samurai and their Zen practices. So, I romanticized the idea of taking up kendo. Perhaps I pictured myself being a modern samurai of some sort: fit and bad-ass, while at the same time, possessing a calm and mindful demeanor.
At first, it was a lot of fun. But with every class for the next 4 or 5 months, reality sank deeper and deeper.
Taking kendo classes turned out to be a huge burden for me, as I didn’t enjoy the rigor. For one thing, I certainly didn’t like feeling nauseous during almost every class, and coming home with blisters, scars and whole body sores. Also, I didn’t like the lack of space I had for things outside of kendo, and I didn’t like having to sacrifice my weekends. And most of all, I really did not like having to be graded so frequently.
It just wasn’t the kind of torture that I didn’t mind having.
It got to a point where I didn’t care about being good at kendo, or even being decently prepared for gradings. I just wanted it to be over.
Bringing this up with my therapist at the time, she helped me realize that the values that got me interested in kendo in the first place were mindfulness and fitness. I signed up for kendo wanting to practice being mindful and healthy. But obviously, the process wasn’t cutting it for me.
She pointed out that kendo wasn’t the only thing I could do to live by those two values. I could do something else to practice mindfulness, like meditating every day. Likewise, I could do some other forms of exercise to practice fitness, like cycling, which I’ve always absolutely loved doing.
Since I quit kendo, my bloodstained shinai, or wooden sword, has stood in my room as a memento of the lessons I did learn during that period of time. But to this day I haven’t picked it up for a single practice.
So, the bottom line is: put aside your egotistic fantasies and let your values guide you instead. And in doing so, don’t be afraid to try different things. Don’t be afraid to quit the things that you hate or that don’t mesh well with your values, either. With every thing that doesn’t work out, it’s a step further in figuring out what you love to do.
Don’t stop until you find the right one(s).
Izzat Zailan 