Last night, while browsing blogs for research on one of our projects, I stumbled upon one of those pieces of writing that captures you so precisely it moves you — making you feel as though you yourself had inspired it.

It addresses the difference between being addicted to work and being passionate about it. Something that can be — and I think you’ll agree — surprisingly difficult to explain to people who see work more as a toll they must pay to live their lives than as a means of personal fulfilment.

Here’s the text in question:

A workaholic lives on fear. It’s fear that drives him to show up all the time. The best defense, apparently, is a good attendance record.

A new class of jobs (and workers) is creating a different sort of worker, though. This is the person who works out of passion and curiosity, not fear.

The passionate worker doesn’t show up because she’s afraid of getting in trouble, she shows up because it’s a hobby that pays. The passionate worker is busy blogging on vacation… because posting that thought and seeing the feedback it generates is actually more fun than sitting on the beach for another hour. The passionate worker tweaks a site design after dinner because, hey, it’s a lot more fun than watching TV.

It was hard to imagine someone being passionate about mining coal or scrubbing dishes. But the new face of work, at least for some people, opens up the possibility that work is the thing (much of the time) that you’d most like to do. Designing jobs like that is obviously smart. Finding one is brilliant.

What’s clear is that no matter how much you love your work, it isn’t always a bed of roses — there are moments of tension, pressure, and stress that can knock you down. Which is precisely why, especially in those moments, we should keep in mind how fortunate we are to be doing what we love, and never let that passion slip away. Because it is, in my view, one of the engines that drive us as a company and one of our core values.

The piece is by Seth Godin, by the way.