[solenoid0937]

The funny thing is once I started working on what I actually cared about, my performance ratings went from average to amongst the highest in my org, and while I work a lot more now, I get a real sense of accomplishment at the end of day, and I'm a lot happier. (I always thought this was a cliche until I experienced it)

People around you can "smell" your passion and sometimes it energizes your team. It makes people around you give more of a damn.

You really just have to find something you care about. This is especially easy at the big tech companies, but for some reason, most engineers don't even think about it - they get stuck in this miserable loop of stress and hating their work.

[a123b456c]

It's nice if you find something you previously care about. But it can go the other way too-- you can care more about what you work on. You can focus on the reasons it is good, or efficient, or honest, or solves real problems, or whatever other metavalue motivates you to care more.

[crimsontech]

Same thing happened to me and I feel very blessed to get paid to do work that I would do for free as a hobby.

> People around you can "smell" your passion and sometimes it energizes your team as well.

When hiring I always look for this, if someone is passionate about the work it often means they will put the effort in to be good at it, and it raises the team in a lot of ways.