Summary Of Do What You Love By Gordon Marino

Doing that you love sounds like a dream but is sometimes not what is best. In the article A Life beyond ‘Do What You Love’, Gordon Marino states,”Our desires should not be the ultimate arbiters of our vacation. Sometimes we should do what we hate, or what most needs doing, and do it as best we can.” Throughout the article Marino tells about his experiences and conversations he has had with his students about what they want to do after high school. As an occupational counselor, Marino explains to his student advisees that sometimes they have to put what they want to do to the side and do something that is not only good for themselves but for others around them. He continues to prove his point to the student advisees by using his professional techniques, telling stories, asking questions, and giving reasons for his argument.

Marino often makes appointments with his students to talk about their plans for the future. Students use Marino as a reliable source for advice and guidance. Not only does he counsel the student advisees at the high school but he also “informally counsels economically challenged kids.”

Marino refers back to his father, Dr.

King, and some of the children that he counsels off of campus to give his student advisees some examples of what he really means. He tells about how his father “labored at a job he detested so that he could send his children to college.” Marino goes into stories about how some of the students that are economically challenged. He talks about how the students do early work and laboring jobs in order to help their families. Those students do not do what they love, they do what they have to do. Not only does he talk about the struggles of his father and the other students he talks about Nelson Mandela, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Martin Luther King did not do what they done for the credit or to be heroic. He says,”they did- like my father and some of those kids from town-what they felt they had to

do.”
Throughout the article Marino goes on to ask his students questions that will make them think about his point. The questions were not necessarily asking to be answered but to be thought about. Marino always starts by asking his students what they are passionate about just to get an idea of what they would like to do in life. Also while he tells the stories of his father, Dr. King, and some of the other children that he counsels, he asks questions. Not only does he ask questions but he quotes Kant by asking, ”But he finds himself in comfortable circumstances and prefers to indulge in pleasure rather than take plans in enlarging his happy nature capacities. Should he?” By asking questions such as, “But is do what you love wisdom or malarkey”, Marino gives his students an opening to think about all of the points that he is making.
Marino wrapped up his whole argument into his beginning and ending thesis statement. In his first thesis statement, ”It also ignores the idea that work itself possesses an inherent value, and most importantly, severs the traditional connection between work, talent, and duty”, he is talking about how being talented and doing your job has nothing to do with what you love. You have to do what you have to do and focus on the work and not your talents. It is all in the way that he explained himself. As Marino said before,” Our desires should not be the ultimate arbiters of our vacation. Sometimes we should do what we hate, or what most needs doing, and do it as best we can.”