“Do what you love.” We speak these words so many times offhandedly that I don’t think we even know what we're saying anymore. In fact what are we actually saying?!
Most of us can probably remember moments when at some get together holding a red solo cup drinking watery lemonade and after spilling our hearts out, a friend encouragingly urges, “just do what you love.” That’s about as helpful as putting a bumper sticker on a car.
I’m probably guilty in my zeal of over saying “do what you love” to every person I met when I was younger, or maybe I did it yesterday… regardless I asked myself. What am I actually saying?
Love, when looked at in a deeper context outside of mere attraction and romance, is a covenantal choice. People binding themselves together out of a desire to stand by that person, even if it means making sacrifices. From a spiritual aspect love is what caused God to die for us. Love endures not because it always gets its way, but because it believes in the heart it has bound itself to. If love then is a covenant, one that is willing to sacrifice, even die for, then I think it’s appropriate to rephrase, “do what you love,” into a better translation:
“Do what you would die for.”
This just went to a whole new level.
Let’s be real. The only way you’re going make it through the pursuit of a career built off your dreams is because you are willing to die for it. I am talking metaphorically, but in a way, I’m not.
If you do what you do just because it pays well, or you want security, recognition, fame, etc., you will be let down over and over again. There is no middle, you’re all in or all out. You have to be prepared to die to yourself if you really want to pursue, “what you love.” The reward is not in circumstance, wealth or security, it may come in time, but the journey to get there will force you to die to yourself and the only way you will survive is if you know what you’re dying to. So yes, do what you love, do what you would die for.
