Do You Love Your Career Or Does Your Ego?
Photo taken when my ego loved my work…you might notice some differences vs. my current photo!
I'm writing this post as much for myself as anyone else.
It's such a slippery slope — most of the time, my motivation for starting something is so pure; I love it for it.
But so often, just as success comes, so too does the ego — rushing in to take over.
The first time I noticed this I was in high school. I really enjoyed reading, learning as a kid. When I got accepted on financial aid at a fancy boarding school, I set my expectations low — I was about to be the small fish.
With a humble approach, I was in love with school for what felt like the first time in ages. I was challenged. I was learning. And I got to do so with some of the smartest, most diverse students and professors in the world.
Much to my surprise, I finished freshman year at the top of my class.
And then everything changed. The ego now aware of this “accomplishment,” I became obsessed with grades. And sure enough, they started plummeting. Just like that, school became a chore. I hated it.
All this is in line with research around dopamine that shows when we start working for the reward, we lose pleasure from the activity itself and eventually lose motivation to continue.
I didn’t know any of this science at the time, and with all the undue stress, I became very ill. After about a week in bed during the winter of my sophomore year, I realized the pressure I was putting on myself to get perfect grades and stay at the top of my class was the problem (this isn’t unrelated to some unmet childhood needs I hadn’t yet worked through).
Lying in my single dorm room, I began furiously writing a manifesto about grades to my teachers. I understood why they had grades, but I didn’t want them. In fact, I needed to not have them. I didn’t really care if they kept grading my work or not — I assumed they would — I just didn’t want to see the silly numbers or letters. I welcomed the comments; they helped.
I wanted to get back to the love of learning.
I don’t recall seeing grades for the rest of that year, and guess what I found out at the end of it — they had kept grades, and…I came out at the top of my class, again. The ego now in-check, I was able to maintain my passion for learning through graduation, where I was named the class valedictorian.
I’ve got similar stories with photography (I now enjoy taking pictures on my phone after losing the pleasure when I started a photo business), playing the saxophone (I’ve just begun thinking about maybe picking it back up one day), exercise and nutrition (I fortunately have re-found the intrinsic motivation), plenty of past relationships (TMI for a blog), and working in tech (I don’t think I ever really liked that TBH — it was all ego).
And now I’m starting to notice ego in my work with Mindful Optimizations — I don’t think I knew what feeling passion for work was until now. It’s been so gratifying to get to genuinely help people. And I can’t help but notice that strong sense of self poking its head.
Having been here a few times before, I’ve been employing the meditation technique of noting — a soft, non-judgmental labeling of the objective reality, and then letting it go — each time I see it.
That action seems to dissipate it, just a bit, each time.
For things like this that come up repeatedly and that I want to change, I journal a few times a week on the subject (also backed by science…and the Stoics). This is, however, a compassionate practice. I generally try to avoid use of the word “should” and judgments in general (in life).
On one hand, I feel lucky to be in this spot again. In all the prior jobs I can remember, I don’t think there was ever really any passion outside the interest in learning a random new subject. The ego seemed to be at the helm with the “success” I was seeing — acquiring knowledge, earning money, winning awards, founding companies, raising money, selling a startup, blah, blah, blah.
But the more time I spend on the cushion (meditating), the harder it is to keep up activities that are solely driven by the ego.
So that’s me.
What’s your story? Do you love your work? Or does your ego? Or is it…complicated?
And if you do love your work, do you find meaning in it?
Truly?
It’s okay not to — I think lots of us think we “should.” I certainly did.
There are lots of other sources of meaning in life.
If you’re not sure about any of this, start with meditation.
Thanks for reading,
Andy
