BTP: Have to vs. get to

A weekend Blue Skunk "feature" will be a revision of an old post. I'm calling this BFTP: Blast from the Past. Original post September 29, 2008.

Seth Godin's post Get to vs. have to resonates with me. In it he asks:

How much of your day is spent doing things you have to do (as opposed to the things you get to do)?

and suggests the higher the percentage of things you "get to do" as opposed to "have to do," the greater the likelihood of happiness and success.

Were Jessica Hagy at indexed to look at this, she might draw:

Yes, it's a book checkout card, not an index card. Tough noogies.

One workshop I give touches on the difference between intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation, revisiting Ed Psych 101. A question I pose to illustrate the difference is "If you won the lottery tomorrow and never HAD to work again, what things do you do at work that you would continue to do?" I am sometimes disappointed that teachers and librarians are rather slow to come up with tasks that they like to do so much that they'd keep doing them.

Eventually a short list appears:

• I'd still read children/YA literature.
• I'd still read aloud to kids.
• I'd still teach kids how to use ____________ software (KidPix, Inspiration, PowerPoint).
• I'd still try out new software or technologies.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his old book Flow writes about people who are able to take even mundane tasks (washing dishes, loading trucks, working on assembly lines, etc.) and turn them into intrinsic challenges by setting personal goals or challenges. I expect many of us have figured out how to do this one way or another.

So far I run about 80% "get to" parts vs. 20% "have to" parts of my job. I genuinely like coming to work everyday. Well, almost everyday. It's a combination of luck and attitude probably. If ever the "have to" portion of my job gets bigger than the "get to" part, I hope I have the good sense and courage to move on.

What's on your list of "get to's?" What would you keep doing even if you won the lottery? How do we encourage those poor people who seem to live an entire work-life of "have to's" to find a more fitting position?