On her blog, Susan's Art & Words, Susan Gallacher-Turner interviewed creativity expert Eric Maisel. I thought his observations on the notion that you should "follow your bliss" (as advised by Joseph Campbell as a way to find your true calling) to be interesting--and realistic:
"To my ear, 'following your bliss' makes life sound much easier than it in fact is. I think that we have to do tons of things that hold no particular meaning for us, like writing marketing emails and so on, that support our meaning-making efforts—the effort to get our book known, for instance, because we think it has something to say—things that feel nothing like blissful."
He adds: "My fear is that the phrase 'follow your bliss' makes it seem as if our work should be fun, soulful, easy, exhilarating, and so on, whereas it is those things only a percentage of the time. But it can always be meaningful, even if it is rarely blissful."
This goes hand-in-hand with our apparent belief that everything should be fun: brushing your teeth should be fun, borrowing money should be fun, eating your dinner should be fun. Of course this notion is largely advertising-driven but it can lead us to think that if we're not giddy with joy every minute of the day there's something wrong.
