Anyone can tell people to do what makes them happy or leave their dissatisfying job. These exhortations have become platitudes. If you want to help people find fulfillment, you need to move beyond the low hanging fruit of personal development advice. You need to do work. You need to talk to people and find out why they stay in their jobs. Then you need to address those concerns.
The exhortation to "do what makes you happy" has been around for a long time, yet there are still people in dissatisfying jobs. Is offering another formulation of the same message going to make a difference? If your audience doesn't respond to your message, you work on your message, you don't just repeat it with subtle variations.
If you want to see someone who is doing work in this field and saying something new, read http://www.unicornfree.com/ or http://www.paulgraham.com/. There is simply no comparison between the kind of practical, "actionable" advice Amy Hoy and Paul Graham are offering and the platitudes presented in this post.
Specifically, read http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html which almost exactly echoes what I just said (despite reading it only after making this post): "We've got it down to four words: 'Do what you love.' But it's not enough just to tell people that. Doing what you love is complicated."
People have been working on this message for thousands of years. I hate to be defeatist, but I'm afraid the only step up from repeating this message in N different forms (and waiting for the person to develop to the point where they are ready to understand this message) is personal tuition and coaching - the very involved kind you receive from your parents, and which takes decades to bear fruit. Unfortunately, that doesn't scale, yet.
At the end of the day, you'll find that no argument will convince people to do anything - people change their behaviours based on environment changes and on emotional changes/development. But I don't think that means we should stop repeating what is true just because it will not have an immediate effect.
Biggest problem is that most people like parts of what they do.
I.e. -- I always loved programming and it still gives me intellectual orgasms. Problem is most programming jobs are boring and stressful as hell and most of the time I am in limbo, trying to find better gigs while still keeping my monthly revenue (because I also have a child to worry about). And speaking about my child -- that's another thing that makes me happy, and it's not easy to make compromises there ;)
Really, my only way out is to earn fuck-you-money and in the meantime to just suck it up for periods of time when I can't find work that satisfies me (that sometimes seem like an eternity). Which also means I have to work twice as hard as most people, because of this idea in my head that I can be happier.
So it's easy to be on your high-horse and repeat to people to do what they love. I also get the feeling that some people repeat this phrase to convince themselves that they indeed love what they are doing ... but let's be honest here, real love gives you lots of temporary hatred too and sometimes it's fricking hard to keep going (i.e. pursuit of happiness != being happy).
I used to feel the same way as you, and I realised two things. It's also worth noting that I am a programmer, like you.
The first thing I realised is, I/you don't actually need fuck-you money. You need fuck-you independence. You need to not be beholden to any particular paymaster for your livelihood. That's far easier to achieve by multiplying revenue streams than by earning fuck-you money.
The second thing I realised is, you're more likely to multiply your revenue streams if you focus on building yourself up rather than sacrificing everything for one job/career/objective.
The real problem with this advice is that those people who really, really need to hear it are precisely the ones who will react like you - by saying that it doesn't apply to them.
Yes, it applies to you. It may take you years to realise it, or you may never get there - people tend to apply advice when they're ready for it, not when the advice is offered - but it is absolutely, 100% for you.
While repeating the message multiple times raises awareness, it does not help people who are discontent but cannot figure out a way out,yet. Repeating the message without concrete advice can eventually lead to the mentality of 'its not for me' or even worse may seem like a lie eventually forcing them to reconcile with the notion that work is well, boring.
Thanks for pointing me to the pg essay. As a confused 25 year old who is trying to find an answer to this very question it was enlightening, particularly the lazy tests- be good at whatever you do currently and keep producing. Most of the advice has been to the effect of 'how I love what I do and you should too' and not about the journey which led to there; there being doing what you love to do.
The exhortation to "do what makes you happy" has been around for a long time, yet there are still people in dissatisfying jobs. Is offering another formulation of the same message going to make a difference? If your audience doesn't respond to your message, you work on your message, you don't just repeat it with subtle variations.
If you want to see someone who is doing work in this field and saying something new, read http://www.unicornfree.com/ or http://www.paulgraham.com/. There is simply no comparison between the kind of practical, "actionable" advice Amy Hoy and Paul Graham are offering and the platitudes presented in this post.
Specifically, read http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html which almost exactly echoes what I just said (despite reading it only after making this post): "We've got it down to four words: 'Do what you love.' But it's not enough just to tell people that. Doing what you love is complicated."