> Better for it to be something you can enjoy and be proud of than not.

That is obviously true.

Which means that as a society, we utterly fail at this. By design, some asshole above you who is trying to optimize your franchise's or department's KPIs will inevitably take every bit of joy you might derive from work, and optimize it away.

If you are happy with your work, anytime the hiring market weakens, that's a great reason to squeeze more out of you/lower your relative pay. If you are passionate about doing something, that's a great reason to make you a worse offer than they would to someone who doesn't care. If you aren't hitting some indicator that's believed to be incredibly important by someone six corporate levels above you, and your line manager is just a powerless drone with no real agency of their own, prepare to get written up.

An individual can walk away from any particular bad situation there - but the overwhelming majority of jobs across the economy are not ones that will avoid all of this. By definition, most people working will not be able to 'enjoy their work'.

You can win a round of musical chairs, but the players as a whole can't.

I am lucky enough to work for a friend of mine and I like the job. Its not fulfilling though. I can pretty much work on whatever I currently want as long as it supports the business but its all meaningless. I'd find joy in working on something that can actually help people in a meaningful way. Working on event tickets and cashless payment isn't really that...

Should the people who built Palantir be proud of their work? Or the people who built Amazons employee surveillance?

I did not take it as criticizing, but holding it up as an example of a life well lived. TLDR "The work won't love you back, pay attention to what can be learned from Gregg's life experience he shared." Certainly, seek out meaningful work, but prioritize loving relationships over it.

> "I have been unbelievably lucky in life, and particularly in my relationship with Rebecca."

(i strongly agree with this, fwiw, based on the data collected about regrets when people approach death [1]; also, we should take the life lessons from someone who has passed as a gift, with value to help us live more full lives with the time we have left)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Top_Five_Regrets_of_the_Dy...

That's a pretty privileged take there. No, not everyone gets to choose what makes them happy when they have obligations to others or even to themselves if they want to eat that night or not. Glad you do, but don't assume everyone does.

Consider that it’s possible for other viewpoints to be valid for many people. I don’t think folks are “blasting” the GP because they’re all blind careerists; I think it’s because it discounts alternative points of view rather flippantly.

I’ve chosen to focus on my family at the expense of career progression and additional income. I don’t think my work would be more than half a sentence in my obituary. But I like what I do for work and I get a type of satisfaction from it that’s different from what I get in my personal life. I’m happy with that.

People are sadly out of touch and misguided for scorching an absurdly narrow definition of professional joy that categorizes all manifestations of it as the same stupid thing? Really?

None of the millions of people throughout history who have enjoyed a creative outlet for their cognitive abilities also involve professional work should be proud or happy about the things they made because someone might think they're sad, misguided, exploited fools?