"'... and he couldn’t not talk about it the way you talk about somebody you have a crush on'... I was like, ‘Maybe this is fine, but it isn’t fun.'"
Said Liz Glazer, from "A Law Professor Switches to Stand-Up Comedy/Taking an improv class on a whim led to a career in comedy for this onetime law professor" (Wall Street Journal).
The skipping-to-work guy was a partner in the law firm where she worked before she took up a job as a law professor, but the concept — wanting to really love your job — carried over to law professing, which she left for stand-up comedy. She'd received tenure, but then her school was making buy-out offers, and she snapped it up. She had been doing stand-up performances for a year at that point, and I guess she knew that was her real love.
Do you love your work and if so, does that mean you are in love with your work? There's a difference! Have you ever let go of a successful line of work because you weren't in love with it? Would you? Would you trust that this other thing that you feel you're in love with would really turn out all right? To put it that way makes the problem sound analogous to being married, without any serious problems, but falling in love with someone else. When that happens, do you think well, hell, I want the magic?
No, no... despite the "in love" business, work isn't like marriage. You don't swear lifetime faithfulness to your job, and your job doesn't have a consciousness capable of suffering. You can be untrue to your job. You're just being true to yourself. There's no moral question, only a question of how much to risk your own happiness. The thing you did for love might fail. It might turn out not to feel like so much fun after you've made yourself dependent on it. And you had tenure!!
Maybe this is fine, but it isn’t fun.
