10.19.2009

happiness

i think someone's talked about this before but whatever it's interesting.

when we choose our occupations we are supposed to choose what we love. right?

my mentor thinks so. but that sort of idealism drives people away from jobs where they are "good enough." do we really expect to both love every moment of our jobs and be eternally happy with them?

maybe our society sets us up for disappointment. it says that if you follow your dreams you'll love your job. if you love your job you will be successful. essentially, love predicates success. but that's not true is it?

what do you think?

3 comments:

dani said...

Is the brain talk making you think too much?

"do we really expect to both love every moment of our jobs and be eternally happy with them?" - No, I don't believe that we're expected to love every moment of our jobs, but at the end of the day, the joy you get from your job will outweigh the frustrations that come with the job.

"it says that if you follow your dreams you'll love your job." - That's not always true. Sometimes, you realize that what you thought was your dream isn't something you wanted to do all along. So you adjust your dream, and pursue what it is that really makes you happy. Just don't...be generous in making many adjustments because then you'll never get to where you can be.

"essentially, love predicates success." - Mm I think that is true because if you love something so much and you have a lot of passion and interest in something, it'll push you to do the best in that area. Learn the most in that area and excel in that field. Even if you don't become a CEO or Nobel Prize winner, what defines success should ultimately be that you're doing what you love to do, and you're doing it well.

Sorry, that was a lot. I hope it made sense!

X said...

My comment is going to be a lot shorter than Dani's, but I think that you have to do what makes you happy and be happy with what you do. If you aren't happy with one aspect of your job/life, you have to be able to see the bigger picture and understand that the happiness you get from the bigger picture is greater than this small nuance.

I think people who have a hard time with this are just not happy people. =D

cricket said...

i completely agree with you guys. the story behind this is that i just found out that a very capable friend of mine is leaving the program because they are no longer happy with science. essentially, theyre leaving to go 'find themselves.' i don't buy it. i think they just hit a hard spot, and this ideal-happiness crap is taking over. but i'm not about to impose my beliefs on that person's life so...