One Thought

Since I left my job, I’ve come to a scary realization: I am now fully responsible for my own happiness. I can do whatever I want; the whole day is free. If I waste the time–or spend it doing things that make me unhappy–it’s my own fault.

I can’t remember feeling like this before. In the past, I have always been in a well-structured environment (in school, at my job) or in the interim between structured activities (between years of school, between jobs). In a structured activity, the structure defines the purpose, and the purpose has never been happiness.

In school, the purpose is to learn, and progress is measured with grades. While you might wonder whether to go to school at all, you’ve probably bought into school’s purpose if you’re there: you want to learn, and you probably want to get decent (or even “good”) grades. That’s the point of school. Whether you’re happy or not in school is, to some extent, irrelevant–you’re there to learn, not to be happy. Being happy is a plus, but it’s not the point.

School imposes constraints on your lifestyle. You have to take classes you might not want to take. You have to wake up early in the morning. You have to study for finals. You have to work on projects you may or may not like, with people you may or may not like. Of course, there is a lot to like about school.  My point is that much of it is outside your control. If you’re unhappy, it may not be your fault–it may simply be that the structure school imposes makes you unhappy. And, even if you are happy overall, it’s unlikely that you would choose every constraint that school imposes on you. Everyone outside of the glossy brochure has some complaints.

Work is even more constraining than school. You wake up even earlier in the morning. You have to show up five days a week for eight hours a day. You have a boss. In school, the goal was to learn; at work, the goal is to earn a living. Sure, most people hope to be happy in their jobs, but that’s not the point–the point is to make money. If you can make money and be happy, that’s a nice bonus.

Many people are unhappy at their jobs. Of those that aren’t unhappy, per se, many are indifferent: they work; they get paid; they leave and live their lives. I’m going to lump unhappiness and indifference together–everyone has the capacity to be happy doing what they do, and an indifferent person is not a happy person.

At work, as in school, the structure imposed bears strongly on your happiness. If you’re not happy, the structure is likely to be, at least in part, to blame. And the structure can only be bent so far. At some point, the only way to bend it further is to break it completely–to quit. You can’t do whatever you want at a job.

I started by saying that it’s scary to realize that I have full responsibility for my happiness. Without the structure imposed by work or school, there are no constraints–and thus no one to blame but myself. I can schedule my time as I like. I can do whatever I want. It’s a great feeling, but it’s also a scary one. Though many hate it, structure is comforting. If my job’s structure makes me unhappy, I can convince myself that there’s nothing I can do about it. After all, the point of a job is to earn a living, not to be happy. Without the structure imposed by a job, however, such thoughts don’t make sense. You have to accept responsibility for your own happiness.

I suspect that many in my situation might be scared back into jobs. Despite the obvious money worries, the structure is comforting. If you’re unhappy, you can blame the structure. You can convince yourself that your happiness is out of your control. You can buy into the obvious and clearly-measurable goals of a job: money and career advancement. It’s nice to have obvious and clearly-measurable goals.

But I don’t want to do that. Sacrificing comfort now is worth it if it forces me to accept responsibility for my own happiness. Without embracing this responsibility, I’ll always live below my potential.