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Do What You Love, Love What You Do.

05 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment

by beverly in Achieving WIN, art, Dreams, Peculiarly Awesome, Tech The Crazy Tags: apple, art, death, jobs, life, love, raw canvas, steve, Vancouver, yaletown

Steves in general are extraordinary. Steve Jobs was no exception. Why be ordinary? Change the world. Rest in peace.

Of course, the video of Steve Job’s speech at a Stanford commencement in 2005 was everywhere today, and as I had forgotten what he said, I watched it again just now. It hit me. Apparently it had also hit me when I had first watched it some time ago, because I can see how it has changed me since then:

I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. And don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don’t settle.

This past week, a good friend and I visited Raw Canvas in Yaletown to chat and paint. Twice. On Monday September 26th, and a week later, Monday October 3rd. Not knowing why, I felt like I needed to paint “Do What You Love, Love What You Do.”

Do What You Love, Love What You Do.

I still don’t know why.

But I know that these words and this painting resonated in my heart before, during, and after its painting.

Rest in peace, Steve. You’ve changed the world in this life, and you’ve changed me.

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On a sillier note, today, I really identify with Sirius Cybernetics Corporation’s Happy Vertical People Transporters with Defocused Temporal Perception… ie. the ability to see dimly (very dimly) into the future. When people around me get close to dying, I get very tired and heavy. I have to sleep. I hit the bed mid-day, have to sleep for a long time, and usually receive sad news soon after I wake up. Maybe it’s because I happen to take mid-day naps more than the average person, but really, it’s starting to get to be a trend. I know, correlation, not causation. But it’s happened about 4 times this year already.