[comlag]

"I play tennis for a living even though I hate tennis, hate it with a dark and secret passion and always have."- Andre Agassi

What if the things you are good at are not the things you love? What about the opposite? It is too complex to boil down to 'do what you love'.

[fusiongyro]

Your quote reminds me of some Go trivia:

"... [Cho Chikun] was asked by a Dutch reporter why he loved Go so much. Cho replied 'I hate Go'. He continued saying that it was too tiring and tense for him. This led to his habit of ruffling his hair or constantly moving about." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cho_Chikun

There's a glimpse of this in "The Master of Go". The author indicates there are different kinds of Go players—one kind, like Go Seigen, a light, bold, self-assured type that play every move as if they have perfect knowledge that it's the best one possible; the other being a dark type that always seem ill at ease, uncomfortable, questioning every move they make and pouring over their decisions for hours afterwards, like Minoru Kitani and current prodigy Cho Chikun. Strangely, the book brings up this dichotomy and never really classifies the main character, Honinbo Shusai, into one or the other category, mainly implying that he is somehow glacially slow, relentless and insatiable at the same time. Good book.

[endlessvoid94]

There's a good talk by Mike Rowe of "Dirty Jobs" about this very subject. He finds perfectly happy people doing the dirtiest jobs on earth.

[sliverstorm]

Job satisfaction is so much more than whether you take pleasure in your day-to-day work.

[muratmutlu]

These Guardian articles might also be of interest

"Benoît Assou-Ekotto: 'I play for the money. Football's not my passion'"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/may/01/benoit-assou-...

"The footballers that don't really like football"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2007/apr/25/theknowledge....

[geoka9]

Frankly, I don't believe Andre here. You can't be the best in the world at something over a long period of time (8 Grand Slam titles, gold Olympic medal, etc. etc.) hating it the way he asserts in his book.

[the_cat_kittles]

What is the point of doing something you are good at if it makes your life worse?

Andre Agassi is one of the most interesting people, though.

[misterbwong]

My guess is that they are doing something that makes life worse in certain ways and better in others.

[batista]

>What is the point of doing something you are good at if it makes your life worse?

Most people on earth are not defined by their jobs. They work because they have to. So he could be doing it for the money. Or the girls. Or the publicity. Or the lifestyle. Or the travel. He doesn't have to do it for the sport itself.

The "do something you love and you don't have to work a day in your life" is feel-good BS for relatively affluent or generally lucky in their life path people.

In any case, it only applies to "likable" jobs: a pilot, a manager, a doctor, an artist, a chef, a journalist, a teacher, a programmer etc. E.g jobs that a lot of people CAN find interesting and fulfilling.

But most of the world goes round by the non-likable jobs. Maybe some people like those jobs too --but they are bizarro outliers. The vast majority of people doing them do not like them.

E.g I don't think many people "love" flipping burgers at a McDonalds, washing dishes, or working 16 hour shifts in a mine, or cleaning the streets from garbage. But they do because they have to --until something better comes along. And a lot of them have kids and such dependent on them, they cannot leave it all behind and go chase some Hollywood dream or whatever.