I’ve been thinking a little about the nature of happiness - whether “being happy” is a realistic goal and how to achieve it.
Does it make sense to try to live your life so that you have time to enjoy the little things that make you happy? Or does it make more sense to pick a thing that makes you happy and build your life around doing that thing for a living?
I realized the things that make me happiest are things like hiking, cooking, hanging out with my friends and my boyfriend, and going to concerts. I don’t know if I should find a job and lifestyle that lets me do these things as much as possible, or if I should search until I find a profession that makes me happy and fulfills me and focus my life on doing that.
This is becoming significant because I’m settling with the idea of not going into academia, which I figured would be the latter - the work and the lifestyle that would fulfill me after spending many years of hard work getting to somewhere where I would be happy - and instead trying to get employed out of undergrad, where I could have more flexibility in terms of where I want to live and the ability to bail out if I wanted to change tracks.
“Work to live vs. live to work”, I suppose, is the relevant soundbite. I’m hoping to hear from people on both sides who feel like they are or aren’t happy. Or people who feel like they’ve achieved both. Or people who feel like ‘happiness’ is an emotion, not a state of being, which is another thing I’m wondering.
I’ll say that “going into academia” is rarely a good life plan no matter which form of fulfillment you are looking for.
I think that for me happiness is not so much in the small things- which of course can be awesome, but rarely build on each other- and more about big picture. If high-school me was looking at “now me,” would she think she had done well for herself? In my case, yes. I have travelled around the world, I have made substantial contributions to the causes that I believe in, I’ve challenged myself and learned more than I thought I’d ever know, and I’ve had a lot of fun along the way. But this comes with trade offs- I don’t have a lot of material processions, no stability my friendships are deep but far-flung, and am not on track to start a family. While occasionally I get a pang of “what if,” overall I wouldn’t trade my life for anything.
On the other hand, millions of people work the 9-5, and live for the weekends, a comfortable and secure life, and their families. They are often perfectly happy, and wouldn’t trade with me for anything.
I think it just has to do with your particular ambition and what drives you- and it’s not an either/or thing. There are a million shades of grey between “happy slacker” and “miserable overachiever” (or “unfulfilled coaster” and “self-actualized go-getter.”)
I’m realizing that i’m not really that ambitious, but I’m restless and a risk-taker. It’d seem like an odd combo, and it doesn’t really fit the “coast through life” or the “career track.” But I’ve made it this far finding a way to make it work. As long as you are true to yourself, you’ll probably find your place.
I think happiness is a pretty high goal to set. I concentrate more on contentment and satisfaction. Happiness to me is a less frequent state of mind that happens from time to time, and the fact that it comes and goes makes me appreciate it when it’s there.
I started going down the career route thinking a challenging career would make me satisfied. And it did for a while, but after a change of circumstances, I realised that wasn’t what I needed right now so I’m in a lower-level, but still enjoyable and challenging, job.
There’s probably a middle ground there, which is to find a job that is both challenging and satisfying, but that also gives you time to spend doing the things you enjoy.
What makes you say that? I’m a student at a research university and I find that many of the people I meet are really inspired by their research and the chance to work with the emerging stars of their field. It seems like a grueling schedule but really satisfying if you are the right kind of person. I’m just not sure I have the drive to get to that point.
(In response to the OP:)
If I could help you make that choice I would, but I have less experience than you. However I am quite convinced that happiness is not some trick that you can learn once by following buddhist or other principles which will render you perfectly happy ever after if only you find the right way of life and discard the others; it seems to me something that requires constant effort to gain and something temporary. This doesn’t mean you should immediately delve into rampant hedonism per se, but it may be prudent not to assume that your needs never change and keep a degree of flexibility in your life. Simultaneously you may now or later desire your life to be woven according to some grander narrative than that and to see and do things few others have experienced––for this academia may or may not be a good foundation. Surely most professions help with fulfilling some of the most basic and regular needs: financial independence, social interaction, physical or mental activity etc.
That’s it: the least unhelpful non-answer I reckon I can give.
I don’t think it is practical to build a career around your own personal happiness. At least not for most people. For one thing, habituation attenuates the pleasure of everything after awhile. Would you really want to eat your favorite meal every day of your life? Secondly, it’s easy to romanticize things that you like and gloss over the downsides. I would never want to do my hobby for a living, because once it becomes a “job”, then that means I have to make things that I may not necessarily want to make, meeting daily quotas, negotiating prices, dealing with unhappy customers, dealing with the frustration of out-of-stock supplies, advertizing and marketing, taxes, and quality control. It is much easier to kept it as a hobby–because that way it becomes something I want to do rather than have to do.
I’m a realist. I think the safest thing to do is to find something that is tolerable, that you’re good at, and then use your spare time for the happiness stuff. There are so many more “tolerable” niches out there than “OMG!? HAPPINESS!!!” ones. People become unhappy when they wait for happiness to arrive in the form of a job rather than using the happiness you create at home and on the weekends to power you during your “okay” job.
If you are the right kind of person, you would leap for the chance to do it even if someone told you “it will be exactly like the seventh circle of hell.” Quality-of-life wouldn’t even be a question in your mind. Remember, for every rising star there is a falling one. And often it is something other than talent or hard work that determines which is which. Academics may have high points in their lives, but the lows are very low.
Anyway, if academia is meant to happen for you, it will happen. You will not be able to escape it. Even if you try to outrun, it will suck you in.
But if it doesn’t do that, I’d do something else. Academia is a calling, and often that calling is more of a curse or a buden than anything else.
Speaking as a person who was once miserable, and is now happy…
I think finding real happiness is about changing your relationship to your own life. It’s human nature to place conditions on our happiness, and to cling to the emotional highs and resist the emotional lows. I think this tendency actually goes a long way toward making us miserable. I have chronic depression, and part of finding real happiness, for me, has been finding a way to be okay even at my most depressed. It’s something about recognizing that these mental states are impermanent, that these goals we’re chasing will be replaced with new goals as soon as we reach them, that life is an endless yearning for more, and that’s okay.
On a more practical note, I seriously considered going into academia myself, and decided it was not worth the required sacrifice - at least not right now. I think knowing yourself is key, and what I learned as a grad student is that I can be competitive as hell when it comes to academia. I buy into the bullshit and it makes me miserable. I don’t want to live a life caught up in the need for constant achievement - at least not of that nature. I am happiest when I am just working in the service of others. No competition, just shared values and a sense of purpose. This allows me to be invested in the big picture but to be able to experience life more viscerally, in the moment.
It’s going to be different for everybody. That’s just me.
I don’t have gems of wisdom of my own to share; I have been reading and listening to books such as “The How of Happiness” (which references quite a lot of studies) and “Happier”. The crux is being happy is not a destination, but a process. You can exercise some control over whether you are happy by focusing to enjoy the now and training the mind to look at things differently.
That’s a gross simplification on my end. I’ll urge the OP to check those books out.
OlivesMarch really has figured it out in my opinion. But I would add that once I came to accept that any environment/situation that I encountered really didn’t have the ability to change my basic self. So moving to a new town doesn’t make me happy, nor does getting the latest gizmo.
I learned that I take myself with me wherever I go. So how I interact with my surroundings and the people found there are choices that I make…for me, simple work has changed from drudgery to an experience that rounds life out. My friends are much more diverse than when I was younger, because they not longer have to reflect me - I can enjoy them for what they are, and not expect them to fit me.
I also learned over a long life to realize that there are some situations that do not suit me, and so I’ve learned to see that and to move on to something that will let me be me.
My grandmother taught me that we become happy with ourselves, without expecting perfection in ourselves or the world. And she also taught me to be aware that I could be happy with me.
I don’t think that “happy” jobs are limited to fun-all-the-time dream job like travel writer or luxury car test driver.
A lot of happy jobs are quite ordinary, and on a daily basis are as much of a grind as any other job. The difference is that with a happy job, when you look back, you feel like you spent that forty hours a week doing something more than earning some pocket money for yourself. A happy job challenges you (in a good way, not just in a pointlessly stressful way,) exposes you to new experiences, provides you avenues to learn and grow, and puts you in contact with people you enjoy and can learn from. Most importantly, a “happy” job has integrity- it is consistent with your personal values and beliefs. You don’t have to put yourself and your life on the shelf when you walk in the door.
I don’t think this is too much to ask for, and with a little imagination many people can attain it.
I like what you said here very much. As I read some of the responses I was thinking along the same lines. I work at a library, and although I am not exactly in the department in which I want to work as of yet, I also feel as you do about what constitutes a “happy job.”
