January 18, 2025
The fulfillment we want in life can come from various sources - work being one of them. One of my favorite current authors, Ryan Holiday captures what fulfillment in our work should look like and one I agree with.
Holiday dropped out of college and began working at a Hollywood talent agency. School wasn't for him and Hollywood wasn't either. He then took a job that some may look down on - especially someone seeking a higher education or already in the depths of Hollywood, as a research assistant for the great Robert Greene, an author.
The perspective observed by Holiday was people in Hollywood or in college were doing or learning about things he did not want to take in. Additionally, those in Hollywood, Holiday looked at those 5 or 10 years a head of him and he could not align himself with them, the path or the work. But to spend his time thinking, reading and writing - he knew he wanted his typical day to be full of these things. And as research assistant to Robert Greene, Holiday saw first hand what that life was like - what the typical days were like.
A lesson we can all take from this and a message we can pass to generations behind us. Be in proximity to others and their work. See what the typical day is like and this can help shape our own perspectives - rather theirs, on what we want and what we don't. I chased titles, status positions and money. Each time I ended up burned. Either by the work or by the choice to pursue it. If the typical day is full of things we don't want to do, how can that be for us? It isn't.
No amount of money can make that feel better. No title, position or inflated status can make that more tolerable. "The work," Ryan Holiday says, "has to be the win. You have to try to get to a place where doing the work is the win and everything else is extra." Meaning, find what you like. Find what is yours. And once you do, just sit down and work. Just show up and work. Because once you find what is for you, who has it better than you? No one, is the answer. Living more typical days than not, is a fulfilling life and work is part of that.