Do What You Love and the Money Will Follow? Yeah, Right!

There's actually a book by this name: "Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow," by Marsha Sinetar. I haven't read it, but I can pretty much guess what the message is. The cartoon, Ziggy, once made a joke of this, in that Ziggy was holding the book, with its title clearly in view of the reader, and the blurb was: "Gee, according to this book, I can get rich eating ice cream and watching TV!"

I have a problem with this tenet of "Do what you love and the money will follow." Marsha Sinetar is not a pioneer behind this adage. It's been going around for a long time. I'm sure her book is well-written and full of helpful material, but please...don't rub it in that if I do what I love, that money will follow.

I've yet to be followed by money while trail running on a beautiful summer day. The only way to make money trail running is to become as good as Scott Jurek, a world-class ultra-distance trail runner, who wins 100-mile races.

Or maybe I could become some kind of wilderness instructor? Keeping a lookout for a bunch of kids and teaching them about forest conservation somehow doesn't quite qualify as the same thing as solitary trail runs.

I love to play volleyball. Gee, suppose I can rake in some big bucks doing this? Of course I can, if I become as good as Gabriella Reece, a world-class doubles beach volleyball competitor! But if I don't get that good, then I can always coach it for high school! Yes, somehow, my own playing of this sport is exactly the same as coaching it to 15 teenagers, blowing whistles, screaming directives and knowing what to say to a team that just got its butt whupped.

I love to eat. Maybe I can make money doing this. I can enter eating competitions, sponsored by the International Federation of Competitive Eating. There truly is big money in this. Sonya Thomas has already earned over $100,000 stuffing herself with, among other things, 37 hotdogs in 12 minutes, and snarfing down something like 9 pounds of cheesecake in 10 minutes. Oh sure, I can do that! I'll remember this next time I can barely get through one piece of cheesecake.