I find the concept of “Do what you like, like what you do” to be very important for life.  In the entertainment industry in particular I think that it is very important to find a job that you enjoy doing since the odds are that you will never make the money that you want to be making!  I personally think that this holds true for anyone in any industry.  Sure, it would be great to make lots of money, but I wouldn’t want to be in a job that made me not want to go to work every day.

I love doing what I do, working at the theatre.  I enjoy going to work.  Even though sometimes I complain, it is usually about being tired and having to get up in the morning.  I work with great people, I make enough to live happily, and I have great benefits.  Work is interesting and fun.  I do my best to make the atmosphere for the the people who work for me interesting, educational, and fun.  I even go so far as to tell people to let me know if they are not having fun because I want to know what I can do to make sure that people want to come back.

What made me think about this today is that one of my co-workers at the theatre is entertaining the idea of moving on to a different job.  What he wants to be doing and what he really enjoys doing is teaching and the fact that he has a lead on a teaching position is great.  It seems like he has had the itch to be doing something different for a while now so I hope that this pans out for him.

Yesterday I posted about living life and doing the things that you want to do.  This is no different.  For most of us, having a job is a must.  There are not too many people who can really just coast through life and not do anything.  So, if we have to work, if we have to do something to make a living in this world then I would rather be doing something that I like to do.  It doesn’t make sense to me to spend any time working at a job that you don’t like.  Do something that makes you happy and brings you some kind of fulfillment.

The other day I was riding up a chairlift at Alta with a couple of guys who were having a discussion about life.  It is very cliché to say that the discussion was about living life to the fullest or living for the moment, but that was pretty much the jist of the discussion.  What struck me as interesting was the angle that they were looking at it from, not just live life to the fullest, more like live fore the here and now.  They talked about how so many people live life waiting for retirement.  Planning to do all the things that they wanted to do as soon as they retire.  I never really thought about it, but it does seem like there are many people who do have a similar mentality.

The point that the guy was trying to make was that there is little point int waiting until you retire to start doing the things that you want to do.  Sure, there may be obstacles in the way like work and family, but should you really put off doing the things that you want to do.  You may have less holding you back when you retire, but do we really need to let these things hold us back in general?  Do they actually hold us back at all?

I come from a family where we pretty much just do the things that we want to do.  My mother has done some very interesting adventures including a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railroad.  She also has a trip to somewhere in Africa planned in the coming months.  We have done various river rafting trips including a “Dad’s and Kids” trip on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.  I get to do a whole bunch of skiing, and hopefully now that I am a certified SCUBA diver I will be able to work in some dive trips.

I am certainly not rolling in money, but I try to find the means to do the things that I want to do.  Sometimes that may just be getting tickets for me and Ruth to go to show and sometimes it is taking SCUBA classes so that I can go dive with her.  Sometimes it is doing things just for me, and sometimes it is doing things together.  It isn’t always easy to find the time and the means to go do everything when we want to do it, but we certainly try.  I don’t want to wait until I am 65 to start doing things that I want to do.

What would we really be if we waited to do the things that we want to do?  Can you even do everything you want to after you are 65?