Then there are those who love things that will never pay very well. As someone who has tried living as a starving artist, I can attest that there’s nothing romantic or noble about being impoverished in pursuit of doing what you love. When you’re working two or three jobs, and you can’t pay your bills, it doesn’t matter how much you love any of them. You just get worn out.

Maybe there’s another way to encourage new college graduates to think about their careers. Maybe all those commencement speakers would send more young people into the world likelier to be happy in their jobs if the speakers talked about love as a consequence of meaningful work instead of as the motivation for it.

Does the doctor love going into the hospital to see a patient in the middle of the night? Does the firefighter love entering a burning building? Does the teacher love trying to control a classroom full of disrespectful children? Not likely. But the work is performed with a sense of purpose that “love” doesn’t capture.