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I think you are missing his point.

As he relates further down in the conversation, there is nothing wrong with doing things for enjoyment. As you say people do this all the time. No one is able to be fully committed to every possible field that interests them.

However, in this life, two things are certain: You'll need to find something to "achieve" rather than just "enjoy" to be properly happy. A quick look a Oprah's book club will show you this.

The second thing is that it is self-defeating to eliminate possible passions or areas to "achieve" in simply because there are elements of them that you may not enjoy or that require greater effort than "comfortable". This is the biggest lie of our society today - that there is something out there that will fit perfectly with you and you will never have a bad day, require practice or fail at.

Every human needs a purpose, but not everything that you do needs to be yours. Rowe isn't addressing the issue you raise, but the idea that you can do everything half-ass and some how come out of life fulfilled and happy. In fact, the "smarter" and more naturally talented you are, the HARDER you need to work at your purpose.

It has little to do with what everyone else thinks, and everything to do with what you think of yourself.



  > This is the biggest lie of our society today - that
  > there is something out there that will fit perfectly
  > with you and you will never have a bad day, require
  > practice or fail at.
I think that you are misunderstanding the 'different strokes for different folks' mentality. The idea is that you should be able to find something that you love doing despite possible failures, etc. Something that you wouldn't want to ever stop doing even if you fail at it sometimes.

How many hackers would stop coding just because they hit a wall or found out that their solution was impossible? It's because they love what they are doing, even if they run into issues.


That's exactly what I'm saying. The lie sold is that the thing you "love doing" requires little effort; will show you no failure or frustration.

That's what the self-esteem group puts forward when they run from failure in the name of hurt feelings. It's a lie.




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