Which comes first Loving Your Job or Master Craftsmanship
When I began Victus Spiritus, I was extremely confident of a path to time value mastery and job satisfaction. If we match our dearest interests and a form of labor, eventually extraordinary value is the result of that pairing. While I continue to hold this belief, another path to value became clear. Between mastery and passion for work, It may not matter which precedes the other.
The subject of our labor may not be more important than the conviction we bear towards it's execution. Instead of having an enthusiasm for a specific type of work, some of us can find satisfaction in the process of mastering it.
We are more than capable of leveraging our unique style to own just about any flavor of labor*. The road to mastery is unsure, arduous, and unique. But there are a few features in common to the journey:
- frightening dedication to details
- heavy sacrifice of other activities, moderation is not an option, at least not now
- the obsessive focus necessary to push from hobbyist, through skilled pro, and finally beyond any question of mastery
Most people follow a lifestyle of moderately balanced (competing) responsibilities and leisure. But nearly everyone has at least one interest which if viewed from a third party is beyond the bounds of normalcy^. Nurturing this passion into mastery is what I've written about in at least a 150 different ways. The passion that inspires our greatest craftsmanship, or the craftsmanship that inspires our greatest passion are two sides of the same coin.
Notes:
*= remind me to share the brief tales of "pull out a post, eat a worm" or the "devil springs tree transfer & ivy breakdance"
^= The objects of our obsession can be either healthy or destructive. Living with destructive obsessions is a topic for another post.