Do any of you make money doing what you love to do?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

At the moment, absolutely. I’m a grad student, so my job is basically “Learn cool things and valuable skills” and “work to solve interesting problems”. In particular, I do planetary exploration systems. I’ve always been excited and fascinated by astronautics and space science, so it’s a great fit. I get to:

  • Design and test systems to augment human capability in exploration (ie, robotics, machine learning, and vision systems)
  • Take part in current space missions to Mars and the International Space Station
  • Alternately play ‘astronaut’ and ‘mission controller’ in simulations of lunar exploration missions in planetary-analogue environments on Earth
  • Work with clever, intelligent, interesting people
  • Travel around the world for research and to discuss my work with international colleagues
  • Take part in activities to explain what I do to the general public and to schoolchildren

And since I work at a university, I’m continually invited to take a break from that and attend lectures and discussions on all the latest research and discoveries, whether it relates to planetary science, exploration, astronautics, or something completely else.

On the weekends and sometimes during the summer, I work as a flying instructor and run a youth leadership and skills development program. I really enjoy both aviation and teaching, so it’s a great supplement to the space work.

As far as I’m concerned, I am incredibly fortunate, and I consider my job to be super cool. It’s a lot of work, and it can be hard to balance the many things in my life, but I really do love it.

But like I said, I’m a grad student, so I don’t get paid very much. Enough for groceries and rent, though, so it’ll do!

22

Yeah. I don’t have a permanent job, but make a living as a consultant and writer. Right now my main job is my dream job, developing museum exhibitions. And my side jobs - often biodiversity surveys - involve work outdoors in cool locations.

I sometimes have to take on jobs writing boilerplate for brochures or other publications, but by and large I make a living doing things I love to do.

23

I have been a computer scientist for more than 30 years.
I truly love designing, coding and implementing my ideas.
Working in a corporation was the price I paid in order to make my dreams into reality.
Until one day, after inventing a new software technique used by the corporation to run robotic controls and after completely designing, coding and implementing the solution, the corporation informed me that “Dr. Gagundathar, thank you for your work. However, we have decided to freeze software development at this time and will no longer require your services.”

Along about this time, my spousal-unit, who had been fighting cancer and the side-effects from chemo since 1997, was told by her doctor that she was on the final approach to death.

So, here I was, unemployed and without health insurance. The last few months wiped us out financially. And by the time she died in July of 2011, I was ready to die myself. And… I almost did. What did I have left? It is extremely difficult to get a position when you are on the back end of middle age, even if you have been a success in your field for decades.

Fast forward to now. I now am living in our ‘retirement’ home in the mountains of Eastern Tennessee, and I am making enough money doing freelance work online to more than make ends meet. I wake and sleep when I want to, work when I need to, and spend a great deal of time gardening, writing fiction, and just playing around both online and in the real-world.

Yes, I miss my dear bride, but I do not miss the soul-killing corporate machine that nearly was the end of me. My commute consists of walking to the bathroom to shower and shave, then downstairs to put on some mint tea and then down the hall to my office. Total time: 15 minutes from bed to work. Compare this to about 2 hours and 45 minutes EVERY SINGLE WORK DAY.

Yes, I make money doing what I love to do, but it wasn’t any easy path.

24

Too late! The Republican Debates are over.

25

Definitely. I’m a compulsive programmer, and I get to architect, design and implement my very own systems - which are vital to the company.

26

I would tend to agree with this. Wholeheartedly. Do I like what I do? Yeah. Do I LOVE what I do? No. Well, sometimes. But the times I don’t love it compared to the times I do are exponentially more prevalent.

27

Yes. Somebody pays me to write about theme parks. My other office is Epcot.

28

Nope.

Playing video games “professionally” still requires an education and/or professional connections that I don’t have.

29

That’s funny because I also love working in theatre and film (and TV) and I’ve been doing it for over 31 years now. I make a good living and get to see/do a lot of interesting things. Mind you, I pretty much lived in abject poverty for the first 12 or so years of my career, but once I established my reputation and refined my skills, things began to get much easier.

That said, it’s not an easy life, and not for everyone, but I have a hard time imagining living any other way.

Also, no, like AHunter3 said, it’s not the One Thing I Love Most In The World, but it is something I love doing and being good at AND people will pay me to do it.

30

I deal with two sides of this coin. I own a business - custom picture framing. I love designing and building frames. I love learning new techniques and implementing them. I love seeing new and different art and artifacts each day.

I hate owning a business. Not hate exactly. Owning the business means less of my time is spent doing what I love. Whenever I think about “what if I won a scrillion dollar jackpot?” I daydream about hiring a business manager and a marketing firm, and a cleaning service (I already pay someone for the bookkeeping and accounting), and anything else I could hire out and spend all my time doing the parts I love.

31

I am a mathematician and I thoroughly enjoy it. Yes, I had to teach (which I sort of enjoyed) and mark test papers (ugh) in order to eat. But I have been retired for 12 years, three months and 17 days and I have never stopped doing mathematics and enjoying, even if I no longer get paid for it. It is evident to me that I am not operating at the same level as I was 50 years ago. But I still enjoy it.

32

My first response was shorter than I would have liked because I didn’t have a lot of time.

That said, given the various answers here, I could easily say I’m making money doing what I love. I first saw a computer when I was 8 years old, and have been fascinated with them ever since. In the times of my life where I was jobless, I still spent an awful lot of time in front of a computer, playing with it, learning stuff, in general poking around and having fun.

Nowadays I’m a work-from-home programmer, I set my own hours, the people I work with are generally nice, and I can work with a pug in my lap. I get paid decently well (though I’d make more if I lived farther west and was willing to work in a cubicle). I really don’t mind what I do most days, and chances are if I wasn’t paid for it, I’d still do it to some extent.

When you put it altogether - the actual work I do and the lifestyle it affords me - I really like it. But do I love it? No. What I would LOOOOVE to do is to be paid twice my currently hourly rate to, in equal parts, screw around in my kitchen making various foodly things, reading books, playing video games, and (finally) keeping up-to-date on computer and programming technologies. If someone has heard of a job opening like that, please pass it on.

33

No. I do artsy stuff and occasionally make some money, but not enough to make a living off of.

34

Yes. I work in theater/music/education, and I love it.

I piece together many different ‘gigs’ to make a real living at it, which is tough schedule-wise and takes a bit of work and dedication, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

35

Yes, I’m a zoo educator. I teach camps and classes onsite, and school and scout outreach programs. When I’m not teaching or researching/writing new curriculums, I train our program animals to do presentation and husbandry behaviors.

I don’t make a lot of money, but fortunately, I have a loving, well-paid husband who can support me in my fun career.

I have friends in the science communication field who have started their own business, and I can see how it would appeal to some - but it doesn’t to me. I like having a boss, and a schedule, and procedures.

36

Yep. I am a biologist and can’t imagine being anything else. If I was not getting paid, I’d do it anyway. I don’t like everything, and it can be very stressful when politics and personnel and funding issues rear up, or when unexpected logistical problems or technical or even safety disasters occur. I’ve noticed that my mentors could never quit when they retired, and I suspect it will be the same for me.

37

This is me too. I love designing Web sites and Web applications but I hate that we’re just a small business and there’s nobody to take the pressure off me at the top. Lots of days I wish I was just a cog in a machine somewhere, doing a bit of coding, instead of wringing my hands about our next paychecks.

Although, I do love doing the books. Like, a lot. I put on that hat every Monday and I look forward to it. Heh.

I don’t know what designing Web sites is what I always wanted to do but it uses a lot of my skills and it’s fun, so I can’t see me doing anything else. And before it was a business it was a hobby so I guess it’s my THING.

38

Oh my YES! I didn’t always make money doing what what I like but I stuck to it and now things are moving very nicely. I often here my friends talk of their hatred for their jobs. Makes me sad for them.

39

Currently, yes. My job is modelling and animating 3D characters. It’s exactly what I wanted to do after I left my last job, if not in the specific industry I had imagined (not movies or video games, but for a smartphone app).

It’s not realistically a long term career option down in this part of the world, so I’ll ride it as long as I can.

40

About 50% of the time, which is a pretty good percentage. I’m in international development, based in the US. When I am in the field (like I am right now), I am about as content as I ever am in life. I never feel more alive than when I am in a foreign country trying to figure out how to get things done while being completely immersed in a foreign culture.