# Do any of you make money doing what you love to do? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 17, 2012, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-make-money-doing-what-you-love-to-do/619080 "2012-04-17T19:32:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![HBomb29](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a8b319/32.png) [@HBomb29](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HBomb29)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-make-money-doing-what-you-love-to-do/619080/1 "2012-04-17T19:32:02Z")
My friend sent me this speech by Jobs [http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html](http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html) and it really struck a chord with me. I don’t want to be a 9-5 rat running in the office wheel for the rest of my life. This article came up when I googled how to find what you love to do > **[Brian Kim.net VIP Self Improvement Newsletter | Self Improvement Newsletter |...](http://briankim.net/blog/2006/07/how-to-find-what-you-love-to-do/)** > > Go on a joruney of self improvement and learn how you can invest in yourself to make your dreams come true. and I have some ideas I want to pursue but not sure if I can survive financially doing it. Anybody here have success in this? What’s it like? Are you making good money? If you’re making less, is it still worth it? ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-make-money-doing-what-you-love-to-do/619080/2 "2012-04-17T20:53:01Z")
I’m fairly certain that doing what I love to do for a living would very quickly turn into me hating what I love to do. It’s a whole different thing when you HAVE to do it. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-make-money-doing-what-you-love-to-do/619080/3 "2012-04-17T21:16:27Z")
I get paid to develop in FileMaker which I thoroughly enjoy. It’s not the One Thing In Life I Enjoy the Most or anything but I’d be doing it as a hobby if I weren’t doing it for money, and I’d miss it terribly if I had to do something else for a living. Or sit around twiddling my thumbs retired. ---
**Author:** ![gracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@gracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gracer)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-make-money-doing-what-you-love-to-do/619080/4 "2012-04-17T21:18:25Z")
I love working in theatre and film and I’ve been doing it for several years now. I genuinely get excited if I get paid AT ALL. Despite a background at a respected drama school and in a month a university degree in theater and film, I will likely never make any money doing what I love. Ah well. Poverty it is then 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![choie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/choie/32/7829_2.png) [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-make-money-doing-what-you-love-to-do/619080/5 "2012-04-17T21:18:36Z")
Heh. **Athena** is certainly right that sometimes changing a beloved activity to one you must perform in order to earn a living can sour one on the activity a bit. As an author I know that now that I’m no longer just writing for sheer pleasure, I feel more pressure and, at least with my former publisher, a dissatisfaction with the work I was creating on his behalf (where I had to fit certain very restrictive guidelines, and also dumb down my prose to satisfy his somewhat condescending view of his readers/customers). But all in all, yes: I earn money doing what I love to do, writing and editing. I admit in a perfect world I’d have gone into a different career path (performing/singing), but that’s churlish. Writing is both a joy and a job, and I definitely can’t complain at being fortunate to have found a way to earn a partial living at it. (Luckily the rest of my income, earned from web design/development, is also enjoyable.) ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-make-money-doing-what-you-love-to-do/619080/6 "2012-04-17T21:27:02Z")
No. ---
**Author:** ![tr0psn4j](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@tr0psn4j](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tr0psn4j)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-make-money-doing-what-you-love-to-do/619080/7 "2012-04-17T21:45:24Z")
Nope. ---
**Author:** ![Whammo72](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/77aa72/32.png) [@Whammo72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whammo72)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-make-money-doing-what-you-love-to-do/619080/8 "2012-04-17T21:51:46Z")
No, but my wife and I have high hopes that one day we might make it work. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-make-money-doing-what-you-love-to-do/619080/9 "2012-04-17T22:20:15Z")
I make money writing books and articles–but I can’t \*support \*myself at it, and never will. I have my “pay the rent” job, and I make extra money on the side doing what I love. ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-make-money-doing-what-you-love-to-do/619080/10 "2012-04-17T22:43:24Z")
> [@Athena](#): > > I’m fairly certain that doing what I love to do for a living would very quickly turn into me hating what I love to do. It’s a whole different thing when you HAVE to do it. It can be, I know at times I just want to say “fuck this”. I always have and still do enjoy the work I do, its all the accessory BS running a business (payroll, tax filings, corp filings, work comp, sales taxes) if I had to do it all over I would probably just go back to my little sole prop onsite thing with some different policies and call it good. Part of my issue was I wanted to grow beyond me, but as you do, it adds layers of business and financial complexity, many of which I suck at. I would love a small lottery win and just do something like only doing custom gaming machine builds or something like that. I just launched a new service attached to my main business doing offsite backups and I actually am liking that aspect of the biz alot. Just built a new server to house it and once things are up and running its pretty simple. I can easily support any issues with the backups by remote login thus fulfilling my dream of “a business I can run from a laptop on a cruise ship” (once I have enough customers) ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-make-money-doing-what-you-love-to-do/619080/11 "2012-04-17T22:44:32Z")
Yep. I teach. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-make-money-doing-what-you-love-to-do/619080/12 "2012-04-17T22:45:22Z")
Had I only realized in advance that a vasectomy would make me ineligible to be a sperm donor! Alas, too late. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-make-money-doing-what-you-love-to-do/619080/13 "2012-04-17T23:06:03Z")
I get paid to design videogames. I’m paid pretty well, so I must know what I’m doing. Most of the time it’s fun. But it’s also stressful. It’s not the sort of job where there’s a set procedure to follow. There’s a lot of “Oh shit, how am I going to salvage this?” moments. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-make-money-doing-what-you-love-to-do/619080/14 "2012-04-17T23:07:57Z")
maybe. I am currently going back into the clowning business. Time will tell if I can make money at it. ---
**Author:** ![Nightsong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nightsong/32/3083_2.png) [@Nightsong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nightsong)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-make-money-doing-what-you-love-to-do/619080/15 "2012-04-17T23:11:57Z")
Actually, yes. Part of my job involves stuff I love to do - it would be nice to have it be a larger percentage of my job, but eh. I’ll take it. * * * \<\< Cereal port not found - service ‘BREAKFAST’ halted. \>\> ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-make-money-doing-what-you-love-to-do/619080/16 "2012-04-17T23:14:09Z")
I guess I’m the exception, here. I have what I consider to be the best job in the world, and I’m really well paid for it, to boot. ---
**Author:** ![sevenwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@sevenwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sevenwood)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-make-money-doing-what-you-love-to-do/619080/17 "2012-04-17T23:15:34Z")
I’m retired now, but when I was eighteen I discovered computers. I _ **loved** _ those things. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that people would actually pay me to program them. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-make-money-doing-what-you-love-to-do/619080/18 "2012-04-17T23:28:01Z")
Yeah. I design international development and education programs. It’s not always a laugh-a-minute, but it’s exciting, challenging, meaningful work that engages me completely. ---
**Author:** ![ToeJam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dfb087/32.png) [@ToeJam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ToeJam)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-make-money-doing-what-you-love-to-do/619080/19 "2012-04-17T23:41:32Z")
I’ll let you know in about 6 years. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![mariposalabrown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ad7895/32.png) [@mariposalabrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mariposalabrown)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-make-money-doing-what-you-love-to-do/619080/20 "2012-04-17T23:48:15Z")
My husband does, which enabled me to be able to drop from the rat race and pursue what I love, I hope to make money by the end of the summer (concert photography). It is way more stressful but so worth it. I don’t ever want to work for someone else again, manifesting your own job has been the most satisfying decision I have made. I got a degree in theatre though, so I have always assumed I would be broke! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-make-money-doing-what-you-love-to-do/619080.md?page=2)