Conventional wisdom has it that we should pursue careers that allow us to spend our work-time doing what we love. It's common sense, right? Work is the biggest part of our lives, in terms of hours spent. We spend more waking hours on the job than with our families. So if we are happy and fulfilled at work, then we have taken a big step toward having happy and fulfilling lives.

This idea that work should be personally fulfilling is a modern notion. My grandfather loved books and opera, but spent his life doing bookkeeping and statistical calculations for insurance companies. Men of his generation understood that work was a sacrifice. They undertook the burden of having a career in order to provide for their families. The fulfillment came from having family lives.

My father didn't follow his bliss into a career either. As he told the story, he fell into his career as a result of being drafted. He was stationed in Okinawa, Japan during the Korean War. It was hot and muggy, and recruits were expected to march around all day wearing heavy packs. But my dad noticed that reporters for the base newspaper carried nothing heavier than a notepad. And their offices were air conditioned. So he volunteered for a position as a reporter. When his stint in the army was up he went to journalism school on the G.I. Bill, and that led to his career as a newspaper editor. I think he came to love the work, but that was just luck. He originally chose journalism as an alternative to real work.

Today, of course, we all feel entitled to fulfillment. Not just in our personal lives, but at work. Career counselors starting in high school tell us to figure out what we love doing, and to pursue careers that let us do it. The best life, we are told, comes from being paid to do what we would happily do for free.

I am not convinced. This advice strikes me as simplistic and even misleading.

My first job was in a doughnut shop. I was hired one summer as a temporary replacement for a “counter girl” who was on pregnancy leave. I poured coffee, served doughnuts, and made change when customers paid. I was a very serious amateur musician in those days, and I loved literature and philosophy. No career counselor would have advised a career in the doughnut biz to my teenaged self.

But you know what? I loved the job. I enjoyed the camaraderie with other employees. I took pride in keeping the counter clean and tidy. I got to know the regular customers, many of them professors from the local college, and made a point of having their orders waiting for them when they sat at their preferred spots. The better I anticipated their needs, the more I earned in tips. And at the end of every week I got a paycheck to spend as I liked. I really, really loved that job.

I couldn't have followed my bliss into that job in the doughnut shop, but it turns out that it was perfect for me at the time. I've had a lot of jobs since then, and I have loved almost all of them. But most of them came from luck, from happenstance, from coincidence.

If I had self-consciously set out to find a job that would make me happy, I would have been limited by my history of situations and jobs that had made me happy in the past. I would never have begun programming, and I would never have left programming for journalism. My willingness to pursue opportunities without knowing in advance that I would find fulfillment there has led me on a convoluted career path, but there is very little, looking back, that I would change.

So I don't accept “do what you love” as good career advice. It will certainly prevent you from learning more about what you love and what you don't. It limits your career options to extensions of jobs you have had and loved before. And I think it reverses the focus in a harmful way, discounting the power of attitude and minimizing personal accountability. My advice is this: Don't do what you love. Love what you do.

Web recommendation: This 2009 post from blogger Rob Diana – Why do you write code? – does a good job of listing the reasons developers find their careers fulfilling. (Hint: It has nothing to do with fancy workplaces or free soft drinks.) J.D. says check it out.

J.D. Hildebrand has written hundreds of articles for dozens of publications and online communities dedicated to software development. He lunched today on a pot of lentils, which always reminds him of Jacob and Esau.