What do you desire? What makes you itch? What sort of a situation would you like? … [When counseling graduating students who ask for career advice,] I always ask the question, “What would you do if money were no object? How would you really enjoy spending your life?” … If you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you will spend your life completely wasting your time. You will be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living — that is, to go on doing things you don’t like doing. Which is stupid. Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way … See, what we’re doing is we’re bringing up children and educating them to live the same sort of lives we’re living, in order that they may justify themselves and find satisfaction in life by bringing up their children, to bring up their children, to do the same thing … And so, therefore, it’s so important to consider this question: What do I desire?
Hat tip to Brain Pickings