Follow Your Bliss(ters)

When Joseph Campbell popularized the phrase “follow your bliss”, he didn’t anticipate how many people would misinterpret it as advice for pleasure-seeking & laziness.

“Maybe I should have said, ‘Follow your blisters,’ because anything worth doing takes work,” he clarified.

While he made the revision tongue-in-cheek, “follow your blisters” proves to be helpful advice in finding competitive advantages.

For example, Naval Ravikant is fond of the idea that “play” is more sustainable than work.

“I’m always ‘working’. It looks like work to others, but it feels like play to me. And that’s how I know no one can compete with me on it.”

Although Naval accrues the same amount of workload as his competitors, he is willing to come back day after day because he loves it.

Someone incentivized by pay or benefits is seeking any sick day, vacation time, or retirement opportunities available.

Let me be clear though: work DOESN’T have to be your life. But if you spend 40+ hours a week working, wouldn’t it be better to try and find something aligned with your passions and interests?

This idea reminds me of Marcus Aurelius’ analogy of “animal fighters at the [Olympic] games — torn half to pieces, covered in blood and gore, and still pleading to be held over till tomorrow… to be bitten and clawed again.”

The prize at the Ancient Olympic games wasn’t a gold medal, money or land: it was an olive wreath. They fought for the love of the sport; that was their bliss, even if it meant more than a few blisters.

So maybe instead of asking yourself what you love more than anything else, ask what you can endure for longer than anyone else.

Following your bliss means following your blisters because if you do anything long enough, blisters will form no matter how you feel about it.

Which blisters are you willing to happily endure?