Do What You Love
Hi, my name is Akiko Naka, the founder and CEO of Wantedly. Wantedly started as a social recruiting service back in 2012, and now has become the largest business social networking service in Japan. Our users in overseas is growing fast, so I decided to write more about myself often in English.
One of my grand parents passed away early this year, and it was my first time to lose someone in my family. My grand father, laid on a bed, looked like he was sleeping. About a week later, his body was burned to ashes. He used to speak and smile, but now it’s just ashes. It reminded me that we are all just a substance on this earth. A chair that I’m sitting on now, a mac book air that I’m using now to type this text, a bottle of water I’m drinking, my colleagues and family, they are all taking the form of “as-is” just for now. It will never last forever. You will also be in ashes too, within 100 years, and the chance of your substance becoming the form of “human” again is quite low. So this is our super lucky chance to “think” and “move-around” to influence the world.
To influence the world, you have to keep doing what you love, and to keep doing what you love, it has to be your occupation. That was always my idea while I was in the college, that we all study hard in order to be able to find a job you love and spend the rest of life doing it.
Surprisingly, when you grow up, you don’t necessarily don’t get to do what you love. Instead, people tend to do what others think is cool, or is good pay, to provide for their families. But remember, you are not born to this world just to reproduce You-Jr. You have to have a “meaning” in your life. We tend to forget our life is “one-time-opportunity’, especially in the short term. “oh I want to buy new shoes”, “I need to check out new restaurants”, “I need to buy a new model microwave”, etc, etc, things will keep you busy so you forget. But remember, with-in 100 years time, you will probably be returned to the earth. So do what you love.
I want our service, Wantedly to enables people to find jobs that they can truly feel passionated about.
