“It’s become a Hallmark sentiment that if you find a career that you care for passionately, everything that is disagreeable about work – the drudgery, the disappointment, and the pain – will disappear and be replaced by complete emotional and intellectual enjoyment.

“This idea is dead wrong in two fundamental ways. First, it’s unrealistic to believe that what one finds to be exciting and fulfilling at the beginning of a career will continue to be so 10 or 20 years later. That’s because it’s nearly impossible to know what a career feels like in advance. You have to do it for a while to find out. Second, working on something you care about doesn’t eliminate drudgery, disappointment, and pain. Doing anything you care about requires the same amount of suffering as something you don’t care about. The goal is not to avoid suffering, but to do work that will make it worthwhile to suffer through it.”

– Michael Masterson