Following your bliss can be overrated.

We should always find the core creative elements that drive us and do our best to feed them. If we’re lucky, very lucky, like lottery odds lucky, we’ll be able to make a living doing what we love. It why prolific authors or talented filmmakers never stop “working” because they don’t consider what they’re doing work.

But the world does not offer enough blissful jobs waiting to be filled. No, apparently the world needs office workers and programmers and skilled labor and manual labor and phone reps and sales people so they can sell and we can buy all of the things that we use everyday. Economies do not revolve around jobs that touch our heart. They revolve around tangible products that we are willing to purchase and they are willing to produce.

The hard part isn’t following your bliss, it’s finding your bliss while doing all the other stuff you have to do to pay the bills.

There’s no shame in being a cog in the machine if it allows you to to get married, have children, provide for your family, spend time with them, to feed them, to travel with them. There is great honor in doing what you must do and doing it to the best of your ability, especially when it is not something you are necessarily passionate about. The world should look up to people who fulfill their responsibilities to their God, their family and their country to the highest levels when they rarely cross paths with their bliss.

So, yes, follow your bliss and I hope you, and I, can one day make a living at it. But, I don’t feel I am less of an artist if I have to fit that blissful path with changing diapers, second honeymoons, high school graduations and church volunteering.

As a matter of fact, all of the things I have to do when I’m not following my bliss makes me more connected to this world, less self centered and more grounded. The tasks I perform when not following my bliss make me a better artist when I have the time to try.

Following your bliss is a lofty goal, but there’s no shame in leading the way there with a day job that pays the bills. Sometimes, it’s the most honorable thing to do.