Steve Jobs famously said the only way to do great work is to love what you do.
And listen, I both agree and would like to lovingly challenge Mr. Turtleneck.
Because here’s the inconvenient truth. You don’t get a moral hall pass just because you’re not “in love” with your job.
I have seen people do mediocre work, sloppy work, even sabotage-level work, all under the banner of “well, I’m not passionate about this.” As if integrity is somehow optional depending on your level of enthusiasm. As if professionalism is a mood.
No.
If you have a compass (a real one not the decorative kind) you do good work. Period. You show up. You follow through. You don’t quietly set the place on fire because you’re bored, bitter, or scrolling LinkedIn during meetings contemplating your next escape.
If you hate where you are? Leave. Exit gracefully. Plot your next chapter like the main character you believe yourself to be.
But do not erode your own standards in the meantime. Don’t mock your integrity. That’s not rebellion. That’s self-sabotage in business casual.
Now, that said.
When you do love what you do? Oh, it’s a whole different symphony.
The energy shifts. The ideas don’t just arrive. They multiply. You go from “getting through the day” to “what else is possible here?” The work stretches you, fuels you, occasionally consumes you (in a way that feels more like fire than burnout). Innovation stops being a buzzword and starts being Tuesday.
Effort becomes almost generous.
And yes, that kind of alignment tends to bear fruit that is messy, imperfect, and sometimes delayed fruit, but fruit nonetheless.
I consider myself lucky (and I don’t use that word lightly) to be in a place right now where I feel that alignment. There’s clarity. There’s momentum. There’s that subtle but powerful hum of “this matters, and I want to do it well, better, even.”
It doesn’t mean every moment is magical. Let’s not get delusional.
But it does mean the work has a pulse.
So perhaps the more complete truth is this. Love elevates your work. Integrity anchors it.
You actually need both.
One keeps you striving.
The other keeps you honest.
And if you’re fortunate enough to have them at the same time? That’s not just great work.
That’s something closer to purpose with a deadline.
Categories: Culture, identity, Leadership, Management, mental health, Psychology, society, workplace
psychologistmimi 
Mr Jobs wasn’t wrong
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“It’s complicated” – yes. Sometimes work is just work, and not at all satisfying – but you agreed to do it for the money, and you owe them that.
Having been chronically ill when I could have continued working, I wish I had been able to continue, and poured everything I had into the job – being on disability is both expensive and not much fun.
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As ‘Krishna’ Related in
the ‘Bhagavad Gita’ Per
“Karma Versus Phala”
Dear Miriam
We Are
Entitled
to the
Action Not
The Outcome
of Our Work
Not the Reward We
Are Entitled to the Process
Not
The Praise
So At Best We Place
Ourselves in a State and
Being of Autotelic Flow Where
The Action of the Process Provides
Naturally Always Arriving Now a Sufficient
Yes Supply of Dopamine and Serotonin With
Healing Endorphins and Just Enough Adrenaline
Without Too Much Cortisol in Stress Hormone Way
of Poisoning
Our Blood Streams
And True if This Flow Lifts
Up the Human Condition Together
Hand In Hand In Process Like Foraging
The Day Away to Gain Subsistence then
Celebrating A Communion of Dance And Song
Around Moonlit Nights With Added Campfire Light
Wow the Exercise of Life for Subsistence And Shelter gets
Warmly
Thrivingly
Done With
Plentiful Oxytocin
Healing Stress
And Anxiety
And Even Pain
Love Bonding
Naturally We
Do Internally and
Together Motivated
To Do it New Again today now
Sigh this could Have evolved
into a Much Warmer Human Story
Together to Get Life Done Still Thriving
However Screens Replaced Face to Face
Warm Connections Yet True there are still
Billionaires and at Least one Trillionaire Still
Operating Their Ferrari Potentials at Full Speed
Yet Sadly
Without
the Warm
Human Component
Of Organic Soul that
(Empathy/Compassion
Human Ape Altruism)
Might Otherwise Not
Close Government Aid to Africans
in Poverty Leading to 750 Thousand
Deaths So Far with 14 Million Projected
By the Year 2030 And Of course similar
Effects in the so-called Richest Country too
Often Hidden
In Statistics
Yet Still As
Real in Misery
Suffering and Death
Not Unlike Old Rome Selfish
Greed With Emperors
Creating Sun God
Statues With
Halos Around
Their Egos
With Gladiators
Bleeding Each Other
Out In Humidity and
Heat Through Storms
Of Real HeLL ON EartH
Celebrating Emperors AS Such
Well of Course
falling
falling
falling
HiSToRY Repeats
What Happens
When The Whole
Tribe is Not Celebrated
As ‘One Star Wars Force’ to
Survive
And Thrive
Just a Midnight
Dance to Thrive
After a Survive
of Foraging with
Free Songs Sung
Sigh
Square
Root One
Problem Dunbar
Number Humans
Not Well Suited to
Environmentally Survive and Thrive
Naked Enough Whole Complete
Together in Numbers of More
Than Around
150 Mostly
Hairless Human Apes
Once again as ‘Charlton H’ Related
On That ‘Pristine Planet New York Ape Beach’
Cleansed From ‘A Matter With Human Things’
Yes With the Most Beautiful Woman on The
‘Planet of the Apes’ With
Kind Empathetic Eyes Then
Yes He Cursed the Humans
to Hell for Erasing That And
Bringing Heaven
Back and the
Garden
of Eden
on the Beach that Day
SMiLes Dear Miriam with
a Little Help From FRiEnDS
i’m still getting by now
In Real Eden With SMiLes
With Nova Eve Indeed She
Has Many Names Like me
as i Understand a free dance
and song together is enough these
days hehe
at Least now
with Financial
Independence
No Longer Working For ‘The Man’..:)
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