WEBVTT - The Trouble With Passion 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:14.800 Good morning, peeps, and welcome to okay f Daily with 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:18.599 Meet Your Girl Danielle Moody, recording not so live from 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:22.599 the Podstream studios here in Times Square. Folks. I'm really 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:27.880 excited to bring on today's guest because for the longest 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:31.200 time I have been thinking about my relationship to work 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:34.080 as my work has shifted and evolved over the past 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:38.480 couple of years. And author and sociologist Aaron Seck, who 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:42.159 wrote the book The Trouble with Passion, How searching for 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:48.440 fulfillment at work fosters inequality, brings up some really interesting questions. 0:00:48.520 --> 0:00:51.720 For the longest time, we've always been taught or told right, 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:55.240 love what you do, and then it won't feel like work. 0:00:55.440 --> 0:01:00.720 Follow your passion right to do all of these grand things. One, 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:04.200 I think we need to acknowledge the place of privilege 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:07.280 that those sentiments come from, because there are plenty of 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:10.679 people who work in service oriented industries where there is 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:13.960 anything but passion or joy. Right, it is a means 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:16.240 to an end and an opportunity for them to put 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:18.560 food on their table, pay their bills, you know, and 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:23.720 simply adult. But for those of us who are in 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:29.120 more white collar professional spaces, I think that the past 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:33.280 year plus has offered us an opportunity to really think 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:36.200 about how it is that we work and what we 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:39.880 want our relationship to work to be. A couple of 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:44.720 years ago, I decided after I had been working in 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:48.440 policy in Washington, d C. For many years, and then 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:53.440 had transitioned into doing more media work, then transitioned out 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:56.080 of both of those things, and then wanted to make 0:01:56.160 --> 0:01:59.560 a move from Washington, DC to New York. I was 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:04.320 working at a very well known PR and communications firm, 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:11.280 and my relationship to work changed dramatically. I was working 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:18.079 roughly on average, sixty to eighty hours a week. My 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:22.080 phone was attached to my hip. It went off all 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:27.160 the time, anytime, morning, noon, or night, holidays. It didn't 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:31.520 matter because part of my work was PR, the other 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:34.760 part was crisis PR right, and so you just need 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:37.640 to be on all the time and the client is 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:43.560 always right. That was the sentiment my relationship to work, 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:48.560 where I had always oriented myself with organizations and spaces 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:53.000 where I had and felt shared mission and value, and 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:55.960 I was just exhausted. On top of which I was 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:59.480 making an obscene commute because I had just moved back 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:02.359 to New York and I didn't have a place of 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:04.240 my own yet, and so I was staying with my 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:07.760 family on Long Island. I was making an obscene commute 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:10.040 into the city every day. It was a three hour 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:15.240 round trip commute, every single day, five days a week. 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:19.560 Everything was weighing on me. The job was weighing on me, 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:22.120 the commute was weighing on me, and it showed. It 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:26.160 showed up because everything for me, when it pertains to stress, 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:31.200 manifests itself Physically. I was starting to look really ashy, 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:34.760 lose color, I was gaining tons of weight. I just 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:39.800 felt like shit, and so I made a really tough decision, 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:42.120 And it was a similar decision that I had made 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:46.600 a couple of years prior. There are moments in my 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:52.119 life where either tragedy or just burnout requires me to 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:57.640 make adjustments and realign myself. When I had left a 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:02.480 nonprofit back in DC, I left in the midst of tragedy. 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:06.960 One of my closest friends had died in a motorcycle 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:11.240 accident outside of the country, and it had me wondering 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:14.040 what the fuck I was doing with my life. If 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:17.960 everything can be up in smoke and gone in an instant, 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:22.200 then what does it mean to really live, and I 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:25.840 recognized that at that time I was working at an 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:30.080 organization that was doing really great work, working on environmental education, 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:33.240 working on saving the planet and the environment, but it 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:35.760 wasn't my passion and it didn't feel like my purpose. 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:38.800 I was getting promoted and I was good at what 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:41.320 I was doing, but I didn't love it. And for me, 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:44.920 loving what I'd do was more important than anything else, 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:48.480 And in the moment of tragedy and loss, it had 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:52.000 me reassess what I was doing and how I wanted 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:55.560 my time. Whatever time I did have left to be 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:59.360 of service, but what kind of service? So I left 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:04.520 my job and I replaced my energy, realigned my energy 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:09.800 into building out my first podcast and my first media platform. 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:16.719 That was in the early twenty tens. Then fast forward 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:21.000 to a couple of years later when I would enter 0:05:21.040 --> 0:05:25.520 into a completely different industry working in PR. Because everything 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:29.279 in media at that point I had learned. I taught myself, 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:34.720 but the hours were ridiculous. My body, my mind, my 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:38.479 spirit just could not keep pace. So after a couple 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:41.559 of years, I decided to pull the plug and thought 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:43.680 that I wanted to go and work at a startup. 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:45.760 But after a couple of months there, I realized that 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:48.200 this wasn't a good fit either. So I did the 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:51.320 ultimate thing. I took a risk and a bet on myself, 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:53.480 and I said, I'm going to take a handful of 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:56.000 clients that I have, I'm going to take the media 0:05:56.080 --> 0:05:59.080 work that I do, and I'm going to create. Essentially, 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:01.120 if I were in college, they would call it an 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:05.720 independent study. I created my own path, design my own 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:09.599 work and how I wanted to work and the things 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:12.599 that allow me to do what it is that I 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:16.120 do is one All of you who are so supportive, 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:20.640 both financially and emotionally and spiritually with your you know, 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:23.520 keep going and keep pushing and keep speaking out sis. 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:27.360 I can't tell you how much your comments and your 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:31.160 thumbs up and your likes and your shares really do 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:35.000 bolster me, particularly when our political climate gets me down. 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:39.040 But I say all that to say that I decided 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:42.560 to design my life around how I wanted to feel 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:46.200 and how I wanted to be of service. And again 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:49.400 understanding that that's a privilege, I knew that if I 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:52.720 wanted to take this risk on myself, and God forbid 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:55.280 I failed, I wasn't going to be out on the street. 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:58.280 I didn't have kids, you know, so I don't have 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:01.160 to worry about mouth to feed other than my own. 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:04.240 And you know, I know that I have family and 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:08.839 friends that act as emotional support and if I needed 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:11.920 to lean on them in another way could also float 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:17.080 me as well. Again understanding those points of privilege. But 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:19.640 the reality is is that we do have the ability 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:22.280 to design the kind of lives that we want. And 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:25.720 I think that the questions and the tools that Erin 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:29.240 provides in her book really allow us to kind of 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:33.720 think about how do I want to feel right? Knowing 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:38.200 that we all, unless you're some type of heiress, will 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:41.640 need to work, right, but what is our relationship to 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:45.320 work and how do we create a relationship that is healthy. 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:47.360 One of the questions that you will hear me ask 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:52.200 Aaron is about, you know, whether or not we're asking 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:55.280 or expecting too much of work? Right? Well, we know 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:58.600 that work expects too much of us, But because we 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:02.320 are there for forty fifty sixty and plus hours a week, 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:05.840 are we looking at work in the way that if 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:09.840 we had more time or could reorient our time, we 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:13.200 would be able to put towards hobbies. Does work or 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:16.800 should work be a passion project, when in fact, we 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:20.600 should never be pouring all of ourselves into one thing, 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:24.040 one person, or one space or place. And so what 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:29.680 does it look like to diversify, right, what is meaningful 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:34.000 to us and where we find that meaning? Aaron will 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:37.520 unpack this in our conversation, which I hope that you 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:43.480 guys enjoy, because it really was incredibly illuminating. You know. 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:48.480 I can remember in high school one hundred moons ago 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:52.280 going in to sit down with my guidance counselor. I 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:55.600 think it was approaching. I was in eleventh grade, right, 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:59.680 so you're starting to really think about college and where 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:01.640 you want to go and what you want to do. 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:04.840 And it's so crazy to me now as an adult, 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:10.480 thinking that we expect people at sixteen and seventeen years 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:14.240 old to put a stake in the ground and decide, Yeah, 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:16.440 for the next four years, I'm going to concentrate on 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:17.920 this thing, and then I'm going to go get this 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:20.520 job and I'm going to live this life. And we 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:22.880 expect people to be able to make that decision at 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:25.720 sixteen and seventeen years old, but then don't allow people 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:29.200 to drink until twenty one. It's very odd, what we like, 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:33.240 the pressures and the expectations that we have, and what 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:36.480 we're socialized to believe is normal. And then in hindsight 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:39.360 you're like, yeah, that's a terrible idea because for me, 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:42.439 I would have if I could go back in time, 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:46.120 I would have wanted to take a gap year. I 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:48.720 believe in a gap year, I would have taken the 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:52.439 year between high school and going to college and go 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:57.079 and volunteer, do AmeriCorps, do Peace Corps, do something that 0:09:57.120 --> 0:10:00.280 allowed me to actually see and experience the world and 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:04.200 feel and understand what I wanted my role to be 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:07.959 before I would then dive into anybody's studies. I also think, 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:12.440 you know, regardless of what kind of student that you are, 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:17.640 those twelve years, right, those you know from K through 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:22.680 twelve or isn't aggressive time of learning and growing and 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:28.600 experiencing life. And so really you should take a break, 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:32.920 right so that when you were showing up on campus 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:37.400 or at your vocational you know place that you are 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:41.320 ready and prepared and refreshed to be able to align 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:45.600 yourself and really like have an open mind and are 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:49.360 ready to grow and experience. Because I'll tell you that 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:53.600 I remember walking into my Guidance Counselor's office. I took 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:57.280 some type of test that was going to tell me 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:00.959 what kind of career that I should have, and if 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:04.240 funny enough, I believe God, I wish I had saved 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:07.280 that paper because that would be like wild to see. 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:10.120 But I want to say that some of the things 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:15.880 that were like pushed out after this test were journalists 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:18.880 I want to say was one of them. Lawyer was 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:24.319 another one. Something anything that had to do with like research, investigation, 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:28.040 asking lots of questions were the things. And you know, 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:30.160 if you know me, and obviously you do because you 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:32.880 listen to OKAYEF, you know that I pretty much kind 0:11:32.880 --> 0:11:35.040 of hit the nail on the head, but not without 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:38.120 a lot of, you know, trial and error along the way. 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:41.920 But I think that it's really interesting that instead of 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:47.640 asking young people what do you want to do, we 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:50.680 should start asking them how do you want to feel? 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:54.040 So that you can then learn to create a life 0:11:54.480 --> 0:12:00.920 and a work life balance around that. Right. And I 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:08.280 think that these next generations are understanding their relationship to themselves, 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:11.960 their identities, and the kind of alignment that they want. 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:16.959 And I think, honestly it's from watching their parents and 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:21.480 their grandparents work out of alignment and work in a 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:24.240 way that it's just like, well, this is just the grind, 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:26.880 this is the hustle, this is what you do, and 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:31.559 recognizing that they are pausing their happiness for forty hours 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:36.400 a week right in and hoping that the weekend or 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:38.600 that day and a half that we get is going 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:41.240 to be enough to fill all of the other gaps. 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:44.680 So this is a really exciting conversation that I have 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:48.520 with sociologists Aaron Seck and tell me in the comment 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:51.840 sections what you guys think about your relation to work. 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:56.079 Has it changed, you know, during the great pause that 0:12:56.120 --> 0:12:59.640 many of us had in twenty twenty. Did you leave 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:02.520 a job? J did you start a new job? Are 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:06.000 you in between spaces? Are you going into a totally 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:09.400 new industry? Let us know in the comment section below, 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:11.440 because I think it's in the conversation at least I 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:14.080 know that I've been having with my friends and family, 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:16.480 and I'm certain that you all are having it with yours. 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:20.200 So coming up next is my conversation with sociologist and 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:27.280 author Aron sek Folks. I am very excited to welcome 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:31.160 to woka F for the first time, sociologist Aron Seck, 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:34.959 who is the author of The Trouble with Passion, how 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:40.760 searching for fulfillment at work fosters inequality er I feel 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:44.400 like I have been telling people and providing people with 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:50.840 the wrong advice after reading your book. The thing that 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:53.880 we've always been told that if you love what you do, 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:57.400 it won't feel like work, that if you just go 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:01.199 after your passion, then you know, all will be Well, 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:05.679 what are we getting wrong about this? Well, first of all, 0:14:05.720 --> 0:14:10.200 it's a natural response to the complexity of the labor market. Right. 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:12.920 We see the labor market out there. We know that 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:16.240 people are working not forty hours a week, but fifty 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:18.679 or sixty or seventy hours a week, and so the 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:21.600 idea of saying, well, I might as well love when 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:23.600 I do if that's going to be the labor force 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:26.800 I'm going into, seems like a pretty rational response. So 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:33.400 what we're getting wrong is the recognition that passion seeking 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:38.720 is based in privilege. So it's based in having safety 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:42.160 nets and springboards that can be able to support people 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:46.200 to be able to manage the kind of precarity of 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:50.080 searching out jobs that they might be passionate about, or 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:53.800 changing up what they're doing in their career to find 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:56.200 a brand new field where they don't have a whole 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:59.120 lot of experience and kind of retool having the social 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:03.440 networks to get those kinds of connections. Ultimately, the sense 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:07.560 that we tell people that they can do whatever they 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:11.000 like as long as they're passionate about it and work 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:14.040 hard enough is precisely in line with the idea of 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:19.240 the meritocratic ideology, which we know doesn't exactly describe the 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:21.760 way that the labor market is structured. You know, it's 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:25.640 funny because right now, you know, we keep seeing articles, right, 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:27.640 and I'm sure that you are paying attention to all 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:30.960 of them. There is a mass what do they call it? 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:32.880 The Wall Street Journal I think did an article and 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:36.600 they called it the mass resignation, right, that over eleven 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:41.280 million people have left the workforce. And you know, we 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:44.560 keep talking about our listening in mainstream media and on 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:47.840 cable news about there being a labor shortage, and my 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:50.800 response to that is that there isn't actually a labor shortage. 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:54.000 There's a shortage of good quality jobs. There's a shortage 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:57.520 of jobs that you know, allow for people to be 0:15:57.560 --> 0:15:59.680 able to not only put food on their table, but 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:02.120 by medicine at the same time, provide them with the 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:06.600 health benefits that they need, the childcare credits that they need, 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:09.640 and so on and so forth. And so why do 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:12.800 you think that, you know, aside from the things that 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:16.680 I listed, when you see those headlines about, you know, 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:19.480 the work industry right now and the fact that across 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:25.440 industries there are thousands of people on strike right why 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:27.360 do you think that that is happening? And was it 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:30.840 a shock to you? It's not a shock to me. 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:36.080 And I think in part the quote unquote labor shortage 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:40.760 or the great resignation is in part due to all 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:45.200 of a sudden there is a competition of employers for workers, 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:48.920 and so they're put in competition and having to elevate 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:51.680 things like pay and benefits in a way that they 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:54.240 weren't pressured to before. So part of it is structural, 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:57.080 but there's also this huge cultural part of it. So 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:00.000 what I talk about in the book is the way 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:04.840 that understanding our experiences with the labor market is not 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:09.000 just an economic consideration. It's also a moral one. It's 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:12.720 also an existential one. The labor force, regardless of where 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:16.240 we are in it is a site of meaning making 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:19.520 in our lives that can be fantastic or can be 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:23.760 drudgerous and full of dread. And so what happens with 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:28.080 the great resignation is for especially the college educated folks 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:31.240 that sort of have a potential ability to step back 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:35.040 and say, what do I want from my work? What 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:39.240 does being a worker mean to me? These questions about 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:43.600 wanting to find meaning fulfillment and work come to be 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:45.760 front and center. And in fact, some of the research 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:48.720 I did that is beyond this Trouble with Passion book 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:52.840 with my graduate student Sophia Hiltner, we actually looked at 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:57.919 workers during a pandemic, so this is October twenty twenty, 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:03.880 and we surveyed college educated workers and compared the commitments 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:07.800 to different labor market priorities of people who had kept 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:10.800 their jobs the same over the course of the pandemic 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:14.399 and people who had lost a job or refurloughed. And 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:16.479 we found that people who had lost a job and 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:21.680 referlowed were more invested in seeking passion than people who 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:24.600 had kept a stable job. And that is in part 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:31.280 related to the kinds of existential instability insecurity that comes 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:36.240 with this context of a global pandemic, alongside the kind 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:41.440 of immediate experience of losing or potentially losing one's one 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:44.800 sense of economic stability. And so it's not just necessarily 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:48.280 people looking for the highest income or the most stability, 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:51.760 but rather how kind how can I align my work 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:54.680 with who I want to be or what I want 0:18:55.640 --> 0:19:00.240 so to look like it? Is it now? Right? And 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:04.720 is this? Are we privileged in this sense? Right? That 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:07.560 we are in a space where I mean, for me 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:11.280 and and i'll and I'll say this for me, the 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:15.119 height of the pandemic provided an opportunity for me to 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:19.359 take a pause, right when when we were in quarantine 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:22.760 and when you know, the world slowed down, it provided 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:26.080 an opportunity for me to have a pause and really 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:28.639 think about what is the kind of content that I'm 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:30.760 putting out into the world. How is it that I 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:33.800 want to be aligned with my work? Um? How is 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:36.960 it that I want to show up? And I found 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:41.640 I understood in that moment that that indeed was a privilege, right, 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:43.879 It was a deep privilege to be able to do that. 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:47.040 I was not an essential worker, right, So I understand 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:50.840 it from that vantage point. But is it also you know, 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:56.080 are we looking for passion or are we looking for 0:19:56.160 --> 0:20:00.439 alignment and is there a difference between those those two things? 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:04.480 Great question. So I would say we are looking for 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:09.520 alignment in our paid work in a way that's really risky. 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:16.760 So there's the risk of financial ruin potentially if someone 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:19.600 follows their passion and don't doesn't have the privilege or 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:23.600 of some form of savings or other things they can 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:27.879 rely upon. But it's also an existential risk in a 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:30.480 lot of ways to try and align our work with 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:32.679 our sense of self. And the reason I say that 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:37.000 is because even if you're in a job that you 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:40.800 find deeply fulfilling and meaningful, it's very likely that the 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:44.320 people that you're working for, the organization that you're working with, 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:48.439 is benefiting far more from the passion based labor that 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:51.439 you are providing to them than you are getting paid for. 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:53.760 One of the things I find in the book is 0:20:53.840 --> 0:21:00.720 through an experiment, an experiment that employers really light job 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:04.120 applicants who express passion for their work, and it's not 0:21:04.200 --> 0:21:06.560 just that they like them because they think that they'll 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:09.760 be fun colleagues or you know, bring a good vibe 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:13.560 to the community, but that they'll be able to get 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:16.280 more labor out of them without an increase in pay. 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:24.160 So right, so there's a knowing exploitation of passion. And 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:28.000 so if we hand ourselves over hand our meaning making 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:32.840 over to the labor market, something that is so precarious 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:36.920 and unstable and certainly is not designed to support our 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:40.560 meaning making goals, that puts us at risk our deep 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:44.480 sense of self. And so it's so interesting because this 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:49.080 moment where people are taking stock of their work, the 0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:53.680 content of their work exactly as you described, in this moment, 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:58.800 if they find a misalignment in that, there's one solution 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:02.200 that let me fire the work, let me find something 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:05.040 about work that I like more. Another thing is, let 0:22:05.080 --> 0:22:07.639 me find meaning outside of work. Let me let me 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:10.440 shrink the space of work in my life and expand 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:12.560 the space of work outside of my life so I 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:16.240 can find that meaning fulfillment that's missing in my life 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:20.480 outside of my paid employment. You know, it's it's so 0:22:20.600 --> 0:22:24.239 interesting because it's like, do we work so much that 0:22:24.320 --> 0:22:26.720 we have a lack of hobbies that we're looking for 0:22:26.800 --> 0:22:30.840 everything to be in this one space and place right, Like, 0:22:31.240 --> 0:22:35.680 you know, if you are putting in on average, forty 0:22:35.800 --> 0:22:39.400 plus hours a week at a job, it's and then 0:22:39.640 --> 0:22:42.960 you sleep and then you eat, and if you care 0:22:43.000 --> 0:22:45.720 for kids or an elderly parent or what have you, 0:22:45.800 --> 0:22:49.400 like that's your time, right Like, that's that's your life 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:52.120 in a nutshell. And so it's like are we putting 0:22:52.480 --> 0:22:57.160 are we as workers placing too much value in what 0:22:57.240 --> 0:22:59.600 it is that we're doing because we're looking forward to 0:22:59.680 --> 0:23:03.280 fill all of the other avenues of our life that 0:23:03.359 --> 0:23:07.560 we may have gaps. Yeah, absolutely, And I think it's 0:23:07.560 --> 0:23:12.320 really tricky because the labor force is not set up 0:23:12.359 --> 0:23:15.200 to help us get out of that trap either. So 0:23:16.359 --> 0:23:20.199 the difficulty, So the reason that that that passion seeking 0:23:20.280 --> 0:23:23.919 is so risky financially is because we don't have the 0:23:24.040 --> 0:23:29.119 same social safety nets and protections as other post industrialized nations. 0:23:29.280 --> 0:23:31.840 So if one says, you know what, I just want 0:23:31.840 --> 0:23:35.639 to work part time so that I can invest in 0:23:35.680 --> 0:23:39.000 myself and invest in my own meaning making, there's very 0:23:39.040 --> 0:23:42.160 little support for someone who is in that kind of position, 0:23:43.040 --> 0:23:45.680 or who might be in some kind of precarious work 0:23:45.760 --> 0:23:49.800 and loses their job or is furloughed to some respect. 0:23:49.920 --> 0:23:52.639 So the riskiness involved is part of the kind of 0:23:52.680 --> 0:23:56.320 structure of the American labor force, but it's also tied 0:23:56.400 --> 0:24:00.439 into culturally what we think of as as being a 0:24:00.480 --> 0:24:05.679 good worker. So it is very unusual for somebody who says, 0:24:06.040 --> 0:24:07.560 I'm going to come in and I'm going to do 0:24:07.640 --> 0:24:09.720 my work and I'm going to leave after him where 0:24:09.720 --> 0:24:11.800 my forty hours are done. I'm gonna put my effort in, 0:24:11.800 --> 0:24:14.600 but then I'm going to leave and not have a 0:24:14.680 --> 0:24:18.240 sense of personal dedication to that work to be coded 0:24:18.280 --> 0:24:21.600 as a good worker. The idea of an ideal worker 0:24:21.680 --> 0:24:25.200 in the United States is, and has been for over 0:24:25.280 --> 0:24:28.359 half a century, the sense of you are devoted to 0:24:28.560 --> 0:24:31.439 the work that you do, and so breaking from that 0:24:31.600 --> 0:24:36.439 not only risks potential sanctions from one's employer, but people 0:24:36.640 --> 0:24:41.199 thinking that one is not morally aligned with expectations of 0:24:41.240 --> 0:24:44.760 being a worker, especially for professional workers. Why do we 0:24:44.840 --> 0:24:47.199 think that this is the case? Now? What is it 0:24:47.280 --> 0:24:52.560 about these younger generations that is shifting how we are 0:24:52.640 --> 0:24:56.320 thinking and looking at work right like? What what? What 0:24:56.480 --> 0:25:00.199 is what is it about our society right now and 0:25:00.280 --> 0:25:03.600 the people that it is producing that we are that 0:25:03.680 --> 0:25:06.919 we are in this moment. So I think it's a 0:25:06.960 --> 0:25:12.680 confluence of two historical processes. One is a cultural process. 0:25:12.800 --> 0:25:18.639 One is related to the ex huge explosion of the 0:25:18.680 --> 0:25:24.480