I normally like Penelope Trunk’s blog. At Brazen Careerist, she offers a somewhat calculated yet insightful approach to job issues affecting US workers. But I think Penelope went a little over some imaginary line with one of her old posts about “Steps to figuring out your next career move.”

Some highlights:

• Cross off your list all the stuff that you like to do but that pays well only if you have the career-equivalent of winning the lottery…. Then eliminate all the stuff that you think would be fun but probably will never pay well: working in a nonprofit, working in local government, being a travel writer.
• If you’re not making time to do it regularly unpaid, then you probably don’t love it. Here’s the litmus test: Sex. We do it regularly, unpaid, and we love it. Run this test on other stuff you supposedly love. Do you crave it like sex? Then you probably don’t love it that much. You probably love the idea of loving it, the idea of who you are when you say you love that thing.
• …[S]top deluding yourself that you have so many interests that you can’t choose. Really what you have is no clear interest and only a bunch of things you would consider if you had nothing to do.

This is, I think, the saddest philosophy I’ve ever contemplated. I can’t imagine making decisions about the rest of my life based, in order, on how much money it brings in, whether I enjoy it more than sex (hello!), and on ignoring everything that fascinates me in favor of things that don’t, simply because I have the misfortune of being fascinated with many things.

My current “day job” pays … well, pretty lousy, actually. Certainly a whole lot less than the prior 9-to-5 job I held. According to Penelope’s philosophy, I should have stayed with the prior job, even though it gave me high blood pressure and any number of migraines. (I certainly didn’t enjoy it more than sex. But frankly, although sex is admittedly a lot of fun and I’m glad I live in a country where I can actually have some without getting my head chopped off or large stones thrown at me, I certainly don’t hold it out as some bellwether of joy.)

I guess what I’m saying is: I think at 41 I’ve earned the right to be happy, and not have to simply punch a time-clock and collect interest on my 401(k).