How to Never Work a Day

There is a quote from Confucius that goes like this: “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” I love this quote and I firmly believe the philosophy behind it to be the absolute truth. If you were to read the success stories of many millionaires, you will find that many of them have a number of things in common. They will often be the type of people who had big dreams and they put in a lot of hours pursuing them.

What often makes it easier for them to put in so many hours is the fact that they enjoy the type of work that they are doing. So what Confucius really means by saying that you will never work a day in your life is that since it is something you enjoy so much, it's not like working at something you would think of as tedious or monotonous.

Everybody has their own idea as to what may be tedious or monotonous or boring. What I may consider to be a boring job, someone else may consider to be their dream job. Sure, any job, no matter how much you may like it, would have some negative aspects about it. Work is, well, work. It's really more about what kind of satisfaction you really get out of it.

One of my many “jobs” is that of a comic strip creator. I do an online comic strip called the Punksters.net Comic Strip. I enjoy doing it mainly because I like to see the end product. Now, granted, I believe some of them are funnier or better than others. I'll be the first to admit that I probably don't hit a home run every time at the plate. But, overall, I am pretty satisfied with the end product most of the time.

There are a number of challenging aspects to doing it. I do it in 3D animation program and add the captions in another program that is used for creating comic books. I also use Photoshop for some things as well as a few other programs. So the creation of each of the comic strips involves the use of a number of programs. Learning those programs was a challenge but once I learn how to do certain tasks, I am kind of proud of myself for having yet another accomplishment under my belt.

I also do other things that have been a bit of a challenge as well. The feeling I get upon the completion of those projects is what really drives me to do them the most. I will often put in a lot of hours doing some of the things I do. Some aspects may be a bit tedious. For example, when I add a lot of pages to one of my websites, it can be a bit monotonous. I have done projects that have involved the creation of hundreds of web pages. But when I look at what I have done and see how I have created over 4,000 pages, it is sometimes hard to believe.

So my satisfaction comes really from what I accomplish. I look at my thousands of web pages I have on the Internet, my 3D art and animation, my music and my writing and it is sometimes hard to believe that I am the one who has done all of those things.

Writing itself can be a challenge. Some of you writers out there would be able to relate to that statement. Sometimes you get writer's block and are worried you may not be able to come up with your next idea. I kind of get that with my comic strips too. But the funny thing is that sometimes I get a rush of ideas and I write them all down for future use. So I somehow manage to keep going.

I guess, to sum things up, I would have to say that you need to find something that you really have a passion for. As for myself, I like the creative process of creating something from nothing. Sometimes the various challenges can be intimidating but when I meet a challenge and do well, the feeling of accomplishment makes it all worthwhile. That's when I realize that maybe confucius was really on to something when he said: “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

Bob Craypoe, also known as R. L. Crepeau is a musician, writer, cartoonist, webmaster, 3D artist and entrepreneur. He is also the creator of the Punksters.net comic strip.