Father Knows Best: Does working at something you love pay off?

By Martin Elfert

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Hey Rev!

If you go out and work everyday at something you love, will it pay off?

– Lesley

Dear Lesley:

Yes. But the pay off may not look the way that you expected it to.

Back when I was a student at the University of British Columbia’s theatre department, I had a classmate by the name of Gerald. Gerald had a kind of mischievous energy, a big and generous spirit, and a deep and palpable love for the arts. He had been hanging around UBC’s Frederic Wood Theatre for a several years before my arrival — at one point he actually lived in its basement. And he kept on hanging around after I left.

Eventually, Gerald graduated, earning an MFA in directing. But like a lot of folks before and since, he found that directing is pretty a hard way to make a living. And so, when Freddy Wood needed a new staff person to run the box office, Gerald took the job. Over the better part of two decades, Gerald got promoted until he was a senior manager at Freddy Wood. I suppose that, during that time, he wasn’t putting his MFA to its “official” use; he directed but a handful of plays, and then only when could get time away from his administrative work. But my sense is that he and his wife (whom, of course, he met at the theatre) and the two children who came to join them were happy.

I’ve enjoyed hearing about Gerald’s life from afar. And I was intrigued when, a couple of years back, he announced that he was leaving Freddy Wood for another administrative job at the university. As a kind of farewell, Gerald wrote a short reflection. The part that particularly caught my attention – and the part that your letter reminds me of, Lesley – went something like this:

Every spring, a gaggle of prospective students and their parents would arrive at the theatre. The young people were giddy with excitement and wonder and possibility. And their parents were nervous. Most of them had imagined their kids going into dentistry or engineering nursing or, well, anything that actually makes money. A few of the especially anxious parents would take Gerald aside and ask: Can anyone make a living in the performing arts? Is what my son or daughter is thinking of doing with his or her life a big mistake?

And Gerald would answer: I don’t know if your child will ever make a living in the theatre. But I do know that I owe just about everything that I have to coming to this place. If I hadn’t said yes to my passion, I wouldn’t have this job that I love. I wouldn’t have met my wife. I wouldn’t be the father to two marvelous kids.

Sometimes, Lesley, doing what you love doesn’t lead directly to a big check. Sometimes it doesn’t lead to a check at all. Being a parent and a husband doesn’t earn me any money. And being a priest is a pretty modest living. But put together, all of my vocations make my heart sing. And I believe that, in some small way, they all add to the sum of good in the world. As far as I’m concerned, that’s an incomparable gift.

So, if by “pay off,” you mean money and a ticket into the upper middle class – if the only way that someone can truly realize his love of baking is to own a chain of cupcake stores, if the only way someone can succeed as a bicyclist is to make a fortune winning famous races – then no, doing what you love might not pay off. But if a pay off could look like something bigger than that – if it could look like a joyous and love-and-adventure-filled life, one in which you have space to be generous because you’re in a place of spiritual plenty – then yes, doing what you love will pay off every time.

In his article, Gerald didn’t say if his words were reassurance enough for the worried parents who visited the Freddy Wood theatre. But they are good enough for me. His words are as concise and beautiful an ode as I have ever heard to following the path that makes your heart sing. His words are a portent of what the dying know: that, one day, when you look back upon your life, you won’t say, “I wish that I had cashed more checks,” but you will say, “I’m glad that I said yes to so much love.” His words are a generous reminder that the path of vocation – even when it does not look the way that we expected, even when it does not involve the work that we foresaw, even when it does not make the money that we had hoped – can still take us right where we need to go.

And that is as big a pay off as there is.