If you are not doing what you love, you are wasting your time.

“If you are not doing what you love, you are wasting your time.” Thus spoke Billy Joel, a man whose life has been a song of both passion and perseverance. Behind these simple words lies a truth as ancient as the human spirit itself — that life, brief as a candle in the wind, is meant to be lived with purpose, not merely endured. To live without love for what one does is to exist without flame; to toil without joy is to breathe without truly living. Joel, whose music has stirred hearts across generations, speaks not of leisure or indulgence, but of alignment — the sacred harmony between one’s work, one’s heart, and one’s destiny.

To understand this saying is to understand the nature of vocation, which the ancients held as a divine calling — a voice from within that guides one toward meaning. The philosopher Aristotle taught that happiness, or eudaimonia, arises when one lives in accordance with their nature — when one’s deeds express the truth of the soul. Billy Joel, though a modern man, echoes this same wisdom through the rhythm of his words. He reminds us that time is the one resource never renewed, and to spend it in pursuits unworthy of the heart is to betray the gift of existence itself. The one who works only for gold may fill his hands, but the one who works from love fills his life.

Joel’s life itself testifies to this truth. In his youth, he faced rejection, hardship, and despair. His early albums went unnoticed, and at one point he even contemplated ending his life. Yet music was his heartbeat — the one thing that gave meaning to his pain. So he returned to his piano, and from that devotion was born Piano Man, the song that would carry his name across the world. It was not fortune or fame that saved him, but love for his craft — the same love he now implores others to honor. He had found his true work, and in doing so, he found himself.

The ancients, too, revered such devotion. Consider Leonardo da Vinci, who painted, studied, and dreamed with a restless joy that defied the bounds of his time. To him, every moment spent in creation was an act of worship — a dialogue with the divine. “Where the spirit does not work with the hand,” he said, “there is no art.” And so it is with all of life: when one acts without passion, life becomes mechanical, hollow, devoid of meaning. Love is the breath that gives motion to action, transforming labor into purpose and endurance into joy. Without it, all efforts turn to dust.

Yet, Joel’s wisdom also carries a warning. Many wander through their days chained by duty or fear, mistaking survival for living. They toil at tasks that drain rather than nourish, believing they have no choice. But to such souls, this quote is a call to awakening. Life is not measured in years, but in moments of aliveness — in the times when the heart sings because the hands are doing what they were born to do. To deny that call is to betray oneself, to waste the one treasure time will never return.

However, this truth must not be mistaken for recklessness. To do what you love does not mean to abandon responsibility, but to infuse responsibility with passion. The farmer may love his land, the teacher her students, the craftsman his art. Whatever the path, if it is walked with love, it becomes sacred. The key lies not always in changing what you do, but in changing how you do it — in bringing to each act the light of devotion, the joy of being fully present. For love transforms even the simplest duty into an offering of the soul.

So, my child, take this teaching to heart: seek always to live in the rhythm of your own truth. If your work does not nourish your spirit, listen to what your heart is whispering. Life is too precious to be spent in emptiness. Find what stirs your passion — and if you have not yet found it, keep searching, keep creating, keep believing. The one who acts from love never truly wastes time, for every heartbeat becomes an act of meaning.

And remember this: to do what you love is not a privilege, but a responsibility to your own spirit. The world does not need more weary souls fulfilling duties without joy; it needs hearts set ablaze with purpose. So let your days be music, your work a song, your life a masterpiece of love. For as Billy Joel reminds us — if you are not doing what you love, you are not truly living, but merely counting the hours until death. Choose instead to live fully, to give your heart to your work, and in that giving, to find eternity within the fleeting span of time.