A 2012 share titled “Do What You Love” garnered more likes (393) and more views (8,396) than any other post on this blog. My thinking has evolved (you were naive!) since that time with a subsequent share titled: Do What You Love? Wrong! and this NY Times article by Professor Gordon Marino titled Life Beyond ‘Do What You Love’:

…But is “do what you love” wisdom or malarkey?

…the “do what you love” ethos so ubiquitous in our culture is in fact elitist because it degrades work that is not done from love. It also ignores the idea that work itself possesses an inherent value, and most importantly, severs the traditional connection between work, talent and duty.

…My father didn’t do what he loved. He labored at a job he detested so that he could send his children to college. Was he just unenlightened and mistaken…

It has become very apparent to me that love has been given a bit of a bad name. We have put our pain and bitterness on love and have become confused about what love actually is.

Love doesn’t come and go in our lives, it finds a spot within our hearts and plants itself deeply, growing roots, sprouting branches, and it grows.  It can’t help it.  It spreads within you, and through you, always seeking more room so that it can continue to grow.  Once love has sprouted roots, it can only grow.  

People might leave our lives but the love that grew from them, grows.  We carry that love with us.  We nurture it, harvest it, and spread it.  

We are carriers of love.  We receive it, and we share it.  

Love is what brings us together, what connects us, what inspires us, nourishes us, guides…

Source: Fallontonight

I got so caught up in the “how” of sobriety that I distracted myself from the doing. Knowledge is power, but power isn’t much use unless it has direction.