This is a side question to this GQ thread about how academic researchers stay focused through projects that may or may not turn up anything. I want to expand that question to ask the same thing about any professional.
I did academic research in prestigious universities for a while in a PhD program. I got turned off the idea really quickly because, whenever I would ask what the payoff would be for a successful project, the answer was always nebulous at best and the most concrete answers I could get were that I could get grant money to keep my job and keep doing more of the same thing for longer. It may be just me but adding more work for an ill-defined communal cause has never been my thing and never will be. I ideally want hard cash and less work, not more because work is called that for a reason and I want both personal money and time to do the things that are really important to me. That probably explains most of the reason why I was not a good fit for an academic research career.
That is only one of many such mindsets however. Serial entrepreneurs leave me equally baffled. They want as much money as they can possibly ever get but rarely have a good explanation for it. I would personally just stop at $100 million or less let alone a billion but for some of them, single digit billions are not enough even if they have to destroy everything else they have to get more.
I have always been a good worker and well-accomplished professional but it doesn’t define my life. I like my current job but I would quit it in a second if someplace else offered me a better deal (more money and more time off in my terms). Is that really considered to be a bad trait in American society these days?
Well, you have to love what you do. The researchers I know do it because they get pleasure from the work, regardless of whether it leads to some life-changing innovation or not. They love the scientific/academic life.
I write songs and practice my baritone ukulele for hours every week. I will never get rich or famous from my music, but that’s not why I do it. I do simply because it pleases me.
So I think the answer to your question is professionals are able to do what they do and stay focused because they enjoy the doing of it. YMMV.
The definition of “fun” is different for different people. It’s not an antonym of “work” for some (perhaps minority) percentage. I like my work and would gladly keep doing it until I expire. The only caveat being that I’d want more freedom to work on projects of my own design as time progresses. Getting paid is just a (necessary) perk.
This is how I view it too. The money is nice, but I enjoy my work and receive a lot of satisfaction from getting better at it over time. This means I spend my free time doing things that help me become better at it. But I’m also fortunate enough to be in a field where I have a lot of independence to devise my own strategy and how I approach each case.
I’m a scientist in industry and have been with my current employer thirty three years. There are still things to work on that are new and interesting, and still things I set aside way back at the beginning that seem like they’d be at least somewhat new and interesting to pick up again. It’s pleasant work and has a successful combination of security and challenge.
I’m not focused every minute or every day, but it’s rare I can go a week without some intense focus, and I spend more time focused than not. I can also find a big variety including nontechnical work.
For a long time I’ve seen it as a rolling negotiation between me and the rest of the organization. I look for new directions that would just plain be fun to work in, because they’re interesting, but that are also lucrative enough for the organization that they’l support me in those directions. And, they give me lots of leeway.
But there are themes I have picked up for long stretches and stuck with. For sixteen years now I have concentrated on manufacturing process heating. Believe it or not, it looks like there are way more than sixteen interesting years still left in there – longer than I expect to keep working.
I’ve moved from positions with very specific deadlines and tasks with due dates to one that is at least half research, and I’m feeling something similar. I’m never sure when I’m “done” with those tasks, and it can be difficult to keep going.
I enjoy the research and collaboration and idea-sharing, but sometimes it doesn’t feel like “doing” anything.