“Off today?” asked the Great Clips hair stylist to the mid-40s-maybe-50-something man who’d just sat down for his monthly trim.
I was in the chair next to him, but the conversation with my stylist had slowed so I listened in.
”Nah. Just a slow day,” he responded.
“Where do you work?”
”From home…I’m an accountant for the state.”
”You like it?”
He laughed.
“Never do something just because you’re good at it.”
He went on, “Eight years ago my dad finally left his career to do something he actually loves…” And just as he told that part of the story the clippers started running right behind one of my ears, and I missed what his dad truly loves.
As the clippers released, I heard him continue, “So my dad tells me, ‘Find something you love and you won’t have to work a day in your life.’”1
“But how do you really know what you love?” he lamented. “I was 20 and needed work. I just started doing what I was good at. I did numbers.”
”What do you love?” the stylist asked.
—
Most of us, I think, would need to pause for a good solid minute (or more) in order to answer that clearly-and-honestly.
Doing things we are good at is at natural as speaking a first language. Sometimes what we’re good at and what we love overlap like a Venn diagram with very little on the margins.
That you? The “good at” and the “love” living in a tight combo?
Sometimes, though, we as individuals or whole organizations take up our days with what we’re good at because it’s safe.
Safe socially.
Or financially.
Or emotionally.
Or all of the above.
The mindset is: We’re good at this and no need to risk rocking the boat with the unknown - however attractive it may be.
And yet the question lingers… What do you love?
Or as Howard Thurman invites: Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
—
“If I could do anything, honestly, I think I would be a high school basketball coach. I’d teach math and coach.”
“Actually,” he went on. “I called Sam Houston State about teaching credential courses… And I’ve done a little coaching here and there over at…”
The trimmers drowned out a few of the details, but I heard him eventually say,
“Sam Houston kept telling me I needed to take these courses I already took years ago, and I told them I didn’t need to be paying all that money for courses I have completed! I told them it was too much and dropped it.”
He stared in the mirror.
“But then after Covid,” he added. “They called and said they need teachers so bad and so maybe we could figure something out.”
“So, I don’t know…” he trailed off.
And I thought to myself There’s a guy dancing with his dream.
He’s got his left foot in,
and now his left foot out.
Right foot in,
right foot out.
Will he land with both feet in the center of that dream?
I mean - he wants it.
But he’s found ways to tell himself it won’t work (or that Sam Houston State is creating too many difficulties for it to work).
And yet what struck me about his dream is that it is not a wholly different thing than what he is already doing. In his dream, he sees a good part of his day still involved with numbers, but he wants to work with them in…
A teaching capacity.
A capacity where the numbers add up to tangible, concrete, and formative impact.
And, also, a capacity where there are some letters, too. X’s and O’s, in particular, which play as a map for the energy, competition, and fun on a basketball court.
(Photo by TJ Dragotta on Unsplash)
And this all makes sense, I think.
In his latest book, From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life Arthur C. Brooks writes that all of us inevitably hit a mid-way stage in life where our brains change. Among other things, what we find is that in the second half of life there is a growing hunger to synthesize, give back, and teach from all that we have accumulated and learned.
Devote the back half of your life to serving others with your wisdom Brooks writes. Get old sharing the things you believe are most important. Excellence is always its own reward, and this is how you can be most excellent as you age.
The key,
the challenge,
the opportunity…
is learning how to move from one kind of first-half-of-life Strength into another, second-half-of-life Strength.
My Clips Colleague was dancing on the line between the two.
—
What about you? Dancing with any dreams?
Maybe you’re on the side of the dance floor wondering about the next…
step…
move…
conversation…way forward?
(Perhaps with a whole barbershop narrative about why it won’t work or why such-and-such school/person/reality is making it impossible)
Or maybe you landed twenty years ago after lots of left-foot-in, left-foot-out motions. And what was the verdict?
Or maybe for the very first time you’ve got both feet entirely midair and you’re hoping to land cleanly in the center of the floor. And how does hang time reality feel?
Regardless of where you are, know that the dream is never about leaving one thing for a wholly other thing. It’s always about the old dance moves informing and even providing the strength for the new ones.
(It’s always the familiar two-step now harnessed for the new tango. Photo by Ardian Lumi on Unsplash)
—
Which is to say, yes, it’s inevitably fearful and unknown when trying a new dance or dance floor - or both. But, perhaps it’s not so terrifying when we remember that every new endeavor is always drawing on years of accumulated dance moves.
The Next Thing is always…
past/present
both/and
skill/love
left/right
Dare we jump with both feet?
“Do what you love and never work a day in your life” has a nice sentiment to it, and I imagine some find truth in it. But, most everyone I know who loves their work would also be quick to say it’s still also work. Either way, the bottom line is that all of us need significant outlets - work or otherwise - to give expression to what we love.
Your story reminds me of my career! After retiring from a 20 yr career in the USMC,I worked at USC
in LA as a mid-level executive for 8 yrs. Next, I took a Logistics Supervisor position with Hughes
Aircraft Co. in LA for another 8 years. I retired for good July 1993 and haven't worked for money since. I have donated much time and money to my Church and Community since.
Thus writing ...great story!