It’s true what they say, you know. I chose a job I love and I’ve never had to work a paid day in my life.
It wasn’t always this way. I used to have a job I didn’t love. I remember the long hours chained to my desk, the excruciating meetings, the bank account with money in it that I could use to buy fresh fruit. But now that I’ve chosen a creative job I love, I don’t have to worry about any of that. Especially the fruit part.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s been hard at times. I’ve had to work my way up from work experience kid to intern to coffee order writer’s assistant to coffee order writer to coffee order supervising writer. But last month I finally made it to where I’ve always wanted to be: unpaid associate producer of lunch.
The thing about having a job you love is that work just doesn’t feel like work. For example, typically when you work you get paid. But at a job you love, you don’t get paid. So it doesn’t even feel like you worked at all! Also, you spend a lot of time at Starbucks, and Starbucks doesn’t feel like work. Except I guess for people who work at Starbucks. I wonder how much Starbucks workers get paid?
At night I dream exclusively of fruit.
There are so many things I love about “working” at a job I love. (Author’s note: Quotation marks used because, as I’ve established, I don’t feel like I actually work at my job because I love my job and also I don’t get remunerated for my labor.) But by far my favorite thing about “working” at a job I love is how freeing it feels. I’m free from the mind-numbing spreadsheets, I’m free from the toxic dog-eat-dog corporate culture, I’m free from the destructive social construct we all refer to as money. Seriously, think about it for a second: money doesn’t actually exist. It’s just an idea we invented so people can more easily exchange goods, like watermelons.
Yeah, so I’m not exactly making it rain financially these days. But I sure am making it rain with ideas during brainstorms. I pitched this great idea to the head writer the other day about a character named Apple, who really likes apples and eats apples in every scene he’s in. I guess you could say apples are kind of his thing. Anyway, don’t want to get ahead of myself, but keep an eye out for a new character on the next season of The Crown. Just saying.
Working at a job you love is so rewarding because it helps you learn more about yourself. For instance, just yesterday I learned that I have contracted scurvy. I would never have had to learn this if I worked at a job I didn’t love and could still purchase citrus fruit with “money.”
It goes to show, if you give it a shot, anything is possible! Even getting an 18th-century sailor disease.
So, if I could give you one piece of advice based on my experience, it would be this: Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a paid day in your life.
And if I could give you one piece of follow up advice, it would be to have a trust fund.