It’s awesome when you find something that delivers joy for you like that. John has helped a lot of us to move in a direction of sharing what we have with the world. It’s a lasting mark he is leaving and amazing what he is accomplishing. I’m glad you are lit up.

My interview with her is here if you wanna check it out: http://developeronfire.com/Podcast/Episodes/linda-rising-lit-up-on-life-and-still-rocking

Dr. Rising also pointed out that it’s never too late to take on something new and make a switch to that thing that is now your thing. And she has demonstrated that with her life and career. She’s an inspiration.

Yea that’s a good point. Tough thing to think about because what if, at that point late in life, they picked something they really wanted to do and turned out they were horrible at it. Or, maybe more commonly, halfway through their lives they made that decision, but they were ill prepared and it ended up being a really hard time.

I think that was more the argument in Newport’s book. To endure some difficulty because that’s inherent to build expertise, but every so often “spend” career capital at opportune times (earlier than later) in order to move in the direction that you want to move to make you happy.

Sure, you can find that down-the-road reward, but it’s not guaranteed and it comes at a price. Linda Rising talked on my podcast about living around some people near her age with lots of regrets about not doing what they wanted when they were younger.

I also immediately thought of Cal Newport’s book in the sense that building what he calls “career capital” sometimes hurts. He provides examples of where people who felt like what they were doing didn’t light them up anymore, but they continued to deliberately invest in becoming exceptional at that thing.

So in addition to re-evaluating why someone is feeling like they’re not getting that satisfaction, they might also think about the long game. Once they build enough career capital and get through some of that inevitable pain – they can spend some of it to spin it into something that does give them satisfaction.

Blogging and podcasting are really setting me on fire lately, too. It’s not mutually exclusive, though, with enjoying development, too. More joy in one place doesn’t necessarily mean an absence of joy in another, but it’s worth thinking about it. I’m glad you’re doing that.

You went with the corollary here – I put forth that being good at something means you don’t have to do it and your response points out that you don’t have to be good at something to do it. An equally valid, useful, and important point. Learning as you go is a great way to really experience life. Your warning regarding passion is well-founded, too. Passion is great as long as engaging in passion produces something of value – passion for video games is fine and can give you some enjoyment and recharge your batteries, but probably not much else.