The Connection Between Happiness and Your Job
Throughout my career I’ve always struggled with work life balance. I allow my job to become a part of who I am. A somewhat recent event in my life made me realize this might not be a healthy way to live. Like so many others, I was laid off earlier this year (don’t feel bad I found a job pretty quickly). The entire experience made me reevaluate what is important to me, because when you don’t have a job it really makes you think about who you are and what you want out of life. Plus your job can’ t be what fulfills you because you don’t have one.
I’ve had four jobs since graduating from college four years ago and I think part of my problem is I want too much out of my jobs. I want them to make me happy. I’m happy in my home life, but I want every aspect of my life to be perfect. What can I say I’m the oldest child in my family – we tend to be perfectionists who want it all. Then I came across the Brazen Careerist blog by Penelope Trunk. This post made me realize that I shouldn’t be looking at my job to complete my life. As long as the work is challenging and keeps me busy, as long as I work for a company that isn’t cruel to its employees or the world, and as long as I know what is expected of me in my job I should be happy. And you know what happened – I realized I can be happy in almost any job. I’m not making six figures, but hey – I’m only in my mid-20s, so few people my age even make what I make.
It’s time I stop looking to my career to make my life complete. I’m still going to be career driven and work hard at my job, but that does not mean I will put my job at the center of my life. Now that I don’t let my job dictate my overall happiness I find that my happiness from my real life (my life outside of work) actually impacts my happiness when I am at work. My life outside work is pretty great, and very fulfilling . I won’t get too mushy but I have to say that I think I have as close to a perfect marriage as you can get, I have a great family and group of friends, and I play the trumpet still – which really does bring me joy.
So, yeah, I might still have a rough day at work that makes me want to come home and mope on the couch. But from now on, the second I leave the office I am gone. I learned one very important thing from being laid off. I owe my company 40 hours of hard work every week, I don’t owe them my happiness outside of work and I will not let my job decide if I am generally happy or not. Only I have that kind of control over my life – and I encourage everyone else to be the same way.
June 26th, 2009 at 9:08 AM
This is where different people have different experiences. I have heard from people who see their jobs as just a way of putting food in the table – and they are happy with that. I have seen other people who love to do what they are doing even if they weren’t paid to do so – and the job is just an opportunity to enjoy their hobby/career. Both extreme kind of situations seem to lead to happy lives.
I think the middle of the road kind of situation has some work-life-balance struggles. There may be ideal ways to achieve work-life-balance… However, I have found it easier to pursue either of the two extremes (leaning towards the latter).
I have also found that the middle of the road situation leads to resentment against ‘the man’, ‘the evil corporation’, or ‘the boss’. Some times it even brings resentment to ’self’, for allowing the situation to continue and not doing something to remediate it.
June 26th, 2009 at 9:48 AM
Jose,
That is a very interesting observation, and I think you have a really good point there. I’ve been a part of several corporations where part of the corporate culture was to hate the company. For people like me who want job satisfaction but don’t want their job to be there life, I think it is possible to be engaged in your career and to be happy at work, as long as you don’t make it personal. That is the key, not making it personal – if something goes wrong at work, it isn’t about you, so stop getting upset, fix it and when you get home enjoy your family. What do you think?
June 26th, 2009 at 1:40 PM
This topic of happiness and jobs, we can probably bring discussions to last an eternity. Something that could be good, as I like to see this topic expanded more on this blog.
I think we both agree that it is not a good idea to take a work related situation as if someone is personally attacking you. That is definitively not the way to advance. Even if they are indeed personally targeted at you, responding against a co-worker, a company, or a boss will not advance you. You may be better finding a way to switch a more advantageous situation (better job or company, for example).
Some other things may be personal indeed… Just as personal as failing a final exam at your last college course. Not a terrible thing to do, but not a desirable one either. Nothing to blame others, and nothing to let it affect your friends/family relationships either. Something to fix, as you mentioned — yet something to avoid the next time. Some experience to build on.
Imagine a young lawyer. Loosing a court battle/case is indeed personal. His/her record will eventually haunt him/her. Same thing for a young doctor loosing too many patients, a young architect making buildings too ugly, a young website designer with sites that nobody visits, or a young graphics artist making hideous logos. There may be a point where a failure at the workplace may bring more than just a financial loss to the company shareholders – it may detract the career. That is not to say that a single failure will be bad – we all fail. But repeated failure may not be a good idea either.
There are other times when there may be personal issues indeed. Take the environmentalist/pacifist who works for Raytheon or Lockheed Martin. The doctor who works for Altria / Phillip Morris. Or the capitalist who works for a company who requests taxpayer grants to provide free internet service (as was my case). Sometimes there are moral struggles in the job that people do – where people are doing exactly what they believe is immoral.
And as I write this comment, I keep thinking about the spectrum of job passion vs. the need to earn a living. There is some gray area in the middle, that brings some struggles — at least to me, when I have been in those situations in my life where I was balancing my desire to do a career on a job that was not exactly what I was passionate about.
September 14th, 2009 at 5:14 PM
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