The big idea: why it’s OK not to love your job

We’re constantly told that passion is what makes work fulfilling. But can being head over heels have its downsides?

A few years ago, I went to a retirement event for someone who, in his late 80s at the time, had spent more than 60 years as a professor at New York University. He had been embedded in every aspect of academic life, from mentoring and research to fundraising. Over the years he had managed to teach 100,000 students the university’s Introduction to Psychology course. Ted is one of those institutional pillars who can tell you what the place was like in 1965. These days, most people don’t last more than four years in one job.

I walked into Ted’s party thinking it would be full of students and teachers, but I was wrong. There were guests from his theatre days, people who hung out at his favourite piano bar, as well as the “techno music” people. Ted had a smorgasbord of identities he had fostered in the city, some related to his career as a scholar, but most not.

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