Vocation • On Daily Work
About Those Critiques of “Do What You Love”
Steve Jobs, famous for Apple, of course, also became rather renowned for a piece of career advice: “Do what you love.” In a famous Stanford University commencement address, Jobs stated, “You’ve got to find what you love–and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”
Such advice did not begin with Jobs, of course. “Do what you love,” (DWYL) in some form or another, has been common advice for generations. “Do what you love, and you’ll never work another day in your life,” is commonly (though possibly falsely) attributed to Mark Twain. Other sources try to trace it back to Confucius. Regardless, the sentiment–and often the very phrase–is often quoted to a college student or young adult by a retiree or near-retiree who has been fortunate enough to largely love his or her work.
A number of authors, over the years, have offered critiques of Jobs’ famous advice. In 2014, for instance, Miya Tokumitsu wrote a well-known critique Do What You Love at Slate in which she critiques DWYL as merely a disguise for elitism. She became quite pointed: “But by portraying Apple as a labor of his individual love, Jobs elided the labor of untold thousands in Apple’s factories, hidden from sight on the other side of the planet–the very labor that allowed Jobs to actualize his love. This erasure needs to be exposed. While DWYL seems harmless and precious, it is self-focused to the point of narcissism.” Tokumitsu expands her thinking in Do What You Love and Other Lies About Success and Happiness.[i] Similarly, Erin Cech provides a more research-based version of Tokumitsu’s critique in The Trouble with Passion: How Searching for Fulfillment at Work Fosters Inequality.[ii]
More recently, Cal Newport has often critiqued the DWYL dictum as over-simplistic, pointing out that most people have multiple loves. Mark Cuban stated that follow your passion, “might just be the worst advice you can get,” saying “If I followed my passion, I’d still be trying to play professional basketball.” A simple search will quickly turn up many more such critiques.
Some authors’ replacements for DWYL stand up better than others. Tokumitsu and Cech’s concerns about inequality are commendable, but their answer of class solidarity needs to be replaced by a biblical response. Cuban advocates replacing DWYL with “Follow your effort.” And while effort and ability must matter to vocational decision-making, he risks replacing one factor (passion) in a very complex decision with another (effort), failing to keep both in balance. Coming closer to the mark, Newport’s critique is valid, though it may not completely invalidate DWYL.
The better answer is not to deny the value of passion, but to recognize that the chance to pursue our passion is a gift, not an ironclad necessity. When we receive that gift, we can let it factor into our vocational decision-making, yet we are capable of living and functioning without it.
We can and should aim to connect our desires with our vocation: both the type of work we do and the areas of interest in which we do that type of work. But–and this is the key “but”–we must apply this thinking to the world of work, which, just like our desires, is both fallen and redeemed. We must realize that in this current life our work will never be 100% what we want. No job, or any other role, will be exactly in our sweet spot. All jobs have duties, and we must handle the parts of our jobs that are still labor, not a joy.
One of my big concerns with the modern faith-and-work movement is that we have over-idealized people’s enjoyment of work. We have left Christians feeling that they have settled or been “inauthentic” if they do not love every moment of their job, creating an idealism that makes many good for little in the actual world of work.
Biblically, just as our desires are good, then fallen and corrupted, and then redeemed, so is work itself. As already noted in chapter 1, work is a pre-fall gift from God, part of our very purpose. The cultural mandate, Genesis 1:26–28, given to mankind before sin exists, is the basis for all vocation:
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
These were the two vocations at the beginning of humanity, raising children and bringing rulership, order, to the world. Both were vocations, just as they are today. The vocation of raising children is just as difficult and just as challenging–and just as godly. And both are good, part of what God made us to be. Further, it was in Genesis 2 that God put Adam in the Garden “to work it and take care of it,” again before there was such a thing as sin in the world.
In Genesis 3, then, the curse takes on greater meaning. Eve is cursed in the activity of childbearing and Adam in agriculture. Genesis 3:16–18:
To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.”
When men and women receive the curse in the areas of childbearing and farming, they are not simply cursed in the two areas of their kingly mission, the two areas of the cultural mandate; they are cursed in their vocations. At this time in the Bible, these are the only vocations that exist. Even today, all vocations in the marketplace can be considered subdivisions, specializations made possible by the efficiency of modern agriculture, but all trace back to the beginning. Bringing order–through our vocation–is now under a curse. And the curse is that it is difficult, painful.
Yet Jesus promises that he is making all things new. But where does he promise that? That promise is in Revelation 21:5–6:
And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.”
These words come after Revelation 21:1, where John recounts, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.” Our work someday will be fully redeemed and good and right and even pleasurable, but that is a future promise.
Currently, we live in what the theologians call the “overlap of the ages” or the “already/not yet,” when the new world to come is breaking in but the old age which is passing away has not yet given up its last breath. And this basic biblical truth about the Christian life creates the right approach to understanding our work and our desires. Our work, like all our lives, lives between our redemption and the consummation of history when Jesus returns. The new age is breaking in but not fully here. The old age is passing away but not fully gone. And in that overlap, work can be what it should be, but it is not there yet, nor will it be until Jesus returns. Work, like all the Christian life, is between the times, a mix of curse and redemption, because the restoration of our world is not yet complete, not consummated until Christ’s return.
Why drag that out? Simply put, to say this: do not be over-idealistic. What we want matters deeply, even to God. And work should be great; it even can be great. But it will not be fully great until Jesus returns. So, we must know now that our vocations in this life will not be fully what we want. Such an admission is neither settling nor inauthentic; it is simply the way the world really is. We recognize that we will not get all the way there in this life.
This means we need to, as John Kyle reminds us, “bridge the expectations-reality gap.” Dr. Steve Garber lived most of his vocational life in the Washington, D.C. area. He tells the story this way. Every four or eight years, Washington, D.C. fills up with idealistic young men and women who move to D.C. to make the federal government just. Then, about two years later, our offices are filled with disillusioned young people who have realized that bringing justice to the complexities of government is much more difficult than they had thought. As Dr. Garber puts it, those who make it in the long run in Washington, D.C. are those who can settle for making the federal government a little more just, who can realize that a proximate justice is a good life’s work, those who are content–to use Bono’s famous phrase–to “tear a little corner off the darkness.” They do not forget their ideals, but they are able to handle moving things only a little bit more towards those ideals as well worth doing.[iii] The same applies to jobs in general, not only those in government. To “make it” in the long run, we must be ready for a job that is a proximate match to our desires, not insisting on an ultimate match.
This brings the discussion to that Suzy Welch article. In October 2025, Welch, a professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, published the article Is Gen Z Unemployable? in the Wall Street Journal.[iv] In it, Welch analyzed the values–part of the desires circle in this book’s terminology–of Gen Z, and she compared them to what employers want to hire. The top three of the 16 values in the survey for Gen Z were eudemonia (a Greek term meaning desire for self-care and personal pleasure), voice (her term for authentic individuality), and non sibi (a Latin term meaning “not for oneself,” in other words, the desire to help people). To go further, fourth was affluence, and fifth was “beholderism,” which means a desire for things–and often oneself–to be beautiful.
Now, before comparing that list to employers, just stop for a second and note the conflict between 1–3 and 4–5. The survey data indicate that Gen Z wants to be all about self-care, personal pleasure, and service to others, yet also wants to be highly affluent and beautiful. It is not quite clear how those will fit together. But the real rub of Welch’s article, and what generated its title, is the comparison between Gen Z and hiring managers. If one surveys hiring managers–2100 of them, in her survey–they are looking for achievement (which came in 11th out of 16 for Gen Z), scope–meaning the desire for learning, action, and stimulation (which came in 10th for Gen Z), and workcentrism (the desire to work for work’s sake), which came in 9th for Gen Z. In other words, there is a horrid mismatch between Gen Z values and the values of the people who will make hiring decisions.
New college graduates will have to deal with this. Of course, we all dream of being entirely in love with what we do, fulfilled by it, serving others, and yet also having lots of money, plenty of leisure time, and being terribly attractive. But we don’t live in that world. We live in this world. When it comes to perks and personal fulfillment, they are always nice to have. They are not bad things, but they cannot be the essence of why we work. Too often, the words from the average new college graduate approximate this: “How can I make sure I’m eating well and seeing my friends and taking time for my hobbies? How am I supposed to fit my whole work life into a 9–to-5 work schedule?” Even in mission-driven fields such as education and ministry, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find those who want to go above and beyond for the cause, and once one turns to profit-driven enterprises, it seems that many of the Gen Z hires are barely there, and “above and beyond” seems like a lost cause.
And yet, though this may be a Gen Z problem, it is not just a Gen Z problem. Even if it has accelerated with Gen Z, the expectation-reality gap has been a challenge for generations. And reality always wins. What is the solution? Serve. Work hard. The good news here is that it is no longer very hard to stand out! Once you have already proven your value, you can position yourself for a better fit, for flexibility, and for personal priorities, but doing so at the beginning of a career makes you a headache, and employers do not want to pay someone to be a headache.
We must recognize that our work is in the already/not yet of the kingdom, that we work in a world where the Fall is still present, even though the world to come is breaking in. We must not just recognize, but embrace, especially when just beginning a career, that a large portion of our work will not be our “love to do’s.” Understand, even though those things don’t “float my boat,” they can sink it very quickly.
As you rise in a career, things change, but at the beginning, you have to earn your way in and up. Once you rise, as you gain more marketable skills, you can look towards roles that match you better. My grandfather had the misfortune of graduating with a Wharton business degree during the Great Depression, and the only job he could get was cutting cloth for 10 cents an hour. Was it likely fulfilling? Did it likely seem to be a good use of his Wharton training? Of course not, but he took it, because it was what he needed to do to earn a living. He later took a job as an accountant–at a federal penitentiary–because that was what he had to do to feed his family. Probably not the greatest workplace, but he did what he needed to.
In a world where the fall is still present, we must bridge the expectations-reality gap by adjusting our expectations to the world in which we live. To do so is not settling or inauthentic, but simply a recognition of the fallen world in which God has placed us.
How, then, do we know when a desire needs to be non-vocational? First, when it comes to abilities, we need to recognize when we are not that good at something (Mark Cuban’s basketball insight). For example, when I was an undergraduate, I worked quite diligently at jazz guitar, something I love, and some folks started asking if I was going to pursue it after college. Fortunately, I had the good sense to say back, “Are you crazy? People better than me are gigging for their beer money in Nashville!” Sometimes we love something, and it is great for that to be a hobby, but it ought not be our vocation. We may be better than average, but we are not that much better than average. Second, when it comes to opportunities, we must recognize when a vocational choice is simply not economical. Even if we love to do something and we are gifted at it, if we cannot earn a living at it, then it is our hobby, even our beloved hobby, but not our vocational calling.
But some really good news about this–we do not have to have a job that perfectly matches our desires to be happy! Every job has some drudge, some “have to do’s,” because all work still labors under the Fall. But we do not need a perfect job to be happy. One of the vocational tools I use with clients is the SIMA CAP, part of the broader SIMA family of tools and research. SIMA produces a “desires MAP” (Motivated Abilities Profile), a comprehensive understanding of what someone wants from their job. SIMA consultants compare this MAP to a person’s actual job and discuss aiming for a “70% overlap.” If someone’s actual job and their ideal job (as measured by their SIMA MAP) overlap by approximately 70%, that person will be, honestly, quite happy at work. If we get a job that is a good match for our desires, a proximate match for what we want, we will find that we are not simply “okay with that,” but actually happy with what God has given us to do.
[i] Miya Tokumitsu, Do What You Love and Other Lies About Success and Happiness (Regan Arts, 2015).
[ii] Erin Cech, The Trouble with Passion: How Searching for Fulfillment at Work Fosters Inequality (Univ. of California Press, 2021).
[iii] For more detail on this concept of “proximate justice,” see Steve Garber, Hints of Hope: Essays on Making Peace with the Proximate (Paraclete Press: 2026).
[iv] Suzy Welch, “Is Gen Z Unemployable,” Wall Street Journal Sept. 24, 2025. For a more developed presentation of her analysis, see Suzy Welch Becoming You: The Proven Method for Crafting Your Authentic Life and Career (Harper Business, 2025). Though not a Christian treatment of the issue, Welch has provided one of the best contributions to the genre.
