But although following your desires and cultivating a meaningful work life are worthwhile and important missions, there’s something dangerous about the way “do what you love” elevates entrepreneurship over working a day job and constructs the decision to go freelance as a moral choice. Sure, leaving an IT firm to launch your first startup or resigning from your lucrative finance gig to write the novel that’s burning inside you can mean carving a career built on independence and autonomy but your success isn’t just down to talent and tenacity; it’s also a matter of race and class privileges that include the ability to speak English, access to money and resources, a network of professional contacts and, if you happen to be a mother, the means to afford childcare so that you can meet the around-the-clock responsibilities that self-employment often demands. A 2013 paper by the University of California, Berkeley, found that successful entrepreneurs were disproportionately white, male and highly educated, in the century’s least surprising news.

— A column, from a couple of weeks ago, on why the mantra ‘do what you love’ irks me for SBS Life.