Enjoy the minutiae

I remember in College I took a class on Counseling in the Criminal Justice system. And that kind of counseling isn't always about doing what's best for your clients. Sometimes it's about doing what's best for society and sometimes your clients are working actively against your efforts to help.

A question that came up, was “why do you do it?” Since many people who enter counseling are mission driven, and these ideas seem anathema to why they started in the first place. The teachers answer was that he liked the work.

And, while this is different for everyone, in stressful jobs I think this is one of the key differentiators between people who find meaning and are happy in their work, and people who burn out. Do you enjoy the day to day. Even, do you enjoy the minutia of your work. Some people really like the even the minute of programming, like code formatting or finding the right variable name. Taking on a simple challenge and seeing if there are new ways to approach it. Some people find it beneath them or just want to get things done and go home, or some people are only happy if they’re doing exactly the kind of work they want to do, for exactly the right reasons.

There’s nothing wrong with person B or person C. We need mission driven people in this world. Mission Driven plus a passion for the work itself is really the ideal, you don’t want too much of one or the other. But I do think it can be harder to deal with the day in day out frustrations. If you want to change the world, there are easier ways than being a programmer.

This is a lesson I’m learning in learning to play music as well. I was struggling taking the typical classical approach. I liked some of the cadences, and the songs are ok. But the chords and scales were lifeless on their own. I bought a book that takes an approach to learning that is Jazz focused, and I noticed that I can just riff on the chord exercises back and forth and enjoy the sound. I also bought a keyboard that lets me play with the timbre of the music, by adding reverb or saturation. A lot of learning music is about repetition, and it’s so much easier to enjoy the repetition when I enjoy the sounds I make.