work = purposeful energy with a direction (TEDx talk)

[Darren Dirt]

It's English, the speaker is American but it took place in Krakow, Poland (so don't quit at the beginning due to language, that's only about 90 seconds for lightening the mood with his audience)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXu7dDSflf8



a very "different" take on the DO : HAVE : BE aspects of living you life.


CLIFFS:
quit your "job", find your "WORK" -- "BE" before the "DO" and "HAVE"

Scherer Leadership International
https://vimeo.com/user7281242

http://vimeo.com/25070876

via http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXu7dDSflf8


http://scherercenter.com/who-we-are/

We equip leaders to transform their lives and their organizations.

Supporting SLI in achieving this mission is an international network of experienced consultants, coaches, change facilitators and leadership development specialists committed to unleashing the human spirit at work.

(emphasis mine)

[Thorin]

That's all well and fine as long as the DO is giving you enough to BE.  Try applying this rule to people living in refugee camps, or subsisting on dirt farms in Ethiopia, or trying to stay out of the homeless shelters in Canada.

The real order is:

1. find something, anything, that makes enough money to pay the basic bills
2. while working at that first job, find something that's better - better pay, better conditions, or better challenges
3. repeat step 2 until you've found a job that pays your bills and fits your interests and aptitude
4. slowly build your savings so that you have the ability to change career tracks if/when you don't want to do your current career anymore

[Darren Dirt]

http://techneur.com/post/844311929/a-pessimist-presupposes-failure-an-optimist
http://techneur.com/post/3900181315/what-the-successful-will-do-that-you-wont

[Mr. Analog]

As the old saying goes the grass is always greener...
...but then again a change is as good as a rest.

I've experienced both and found happiness in the darkest depths of a terrible job as well as finding joy in moving to something different.

The point is, happiness is how you look at things.

As for your reply to Thorin I actually find the concept that you can only find happiness in work if you find the "perfect job that is a perfect fit" the pessimistic view. In fact I think a person might end up going crazy trying to find the perfect job in an imperfect world.

[Thorin]

http://techneur.com/post/844311929/a-pessimist-presupposes-failure-an-optimist
http://techneur.com/post/3900181315/what-the-successful-will-do-that-you-wont

That second link describes my point perfectly.  People start doing crap work to make money, and eventually accumulate enough money to fund work they want to do.

The tone of your reply implies that you disagree with me and that you think I need to be more optimistic.  So, assuming that is what you meant, let me ask you this: are you at your perfect job, or are you at a job that you sometimes like and sometimes hate because it pays a decent salary and has decent benefits?

[Darren Dirt]

I actually find the concept that you can only find happiness in work if you find the "perfect job that is a perfect fit" the pessimistic view.

I agree that "happiness" is actually a decision.

There were some pretty damn inspiring, truly joy-filled people in the WW2 concentration camps, based on writings and stories handed down. Circumstances can obviously help/hurt the "ease" of experiencing "happiness", but they're not a requirement nor an immovable block to it.



In answer to Thorin, tbh I've been thinking about that lately -- and am now making a conscious effort, decision, to strive to express "me" in what I do at my "job", in how I accomplish my tasks, in how I do the "work"... Because obv. there's no "perfect" job, there's only again and again opportunities to learn about yourself in good times and bad, including your emotional triggers and ability to control/change emotional responses to stuff (again, both good and bad).


If I can't "find my voice" at my job, it's not the fault of my boss or colleagues, nor of the economy or whichever political party is in power this year. It's because I'm holding myself back, I'm taking the lazy, fear-driven way out.


Life with kids has sure helped teach me that too -- "free time" when I was a "weekend dad" was nice, and in theory less stressful, but I am immeasurably happier now that I am back home with my wife and kids and see them every day when I wake up, even though now I have far more numerous (and yet "normal") burdens on my shoulders. I gladly choose to take this stuff on now, and when I feel less than happy I am finally healthy enough to examine "under the hood" exactly why -- it's rarely the circumstances themselves, but rather my own internal dialog, my own feelings about myself and adequacies and identity and even my perspective on time and stuff like that.

Yeesh wish I was so clear-thinking a decade ago. Youth is wasted on the young, so true...

[Mr. Analog]

A hard-earned happiness feels so good... accomplishment+satisfaction, that feeling lasts a long time.

When I left my last job I felt good about it because I had done so much to make things better in just a couple of years, it sure wasn't the work itself though! I had to push myself to want to achieve there. I could have very easily gone to sleep and just kept rolling the rock up the hill every day...

EDIT: darn you... Edit-Tor! (j/k)

Yes, the search for happiness is an internal one, for life/work/whatever

Haha the trouble with wisdom is having to go through experiences to get it!

[Thorin]

Well it can be the fault of your boss.  I've worked for a couple of asshats in the past and they actively tried to make me unhappy.  But I corrected the situation by finding a better job with a better boss.  I totally understand the roll-the-rock-up-the-hill sentiment, and if/when I get to that point in a job, I go looking for something new.  It's possible to do that new thing at the same company, but in my line of work it usually means switching companies.

I spend a lot of time analyzing things, but man, Darren, it sounds like you do way more self-analysis than me.

[Darren Dirt]

EDIT: darn you... Edit-Tor! (j/k)

mwahahaha (aren't I evil)

I spend a lot of time analyzing things, but man, Darren, it sounds like you do way more self-analysis than me.

Only "lately". Really since early 2011. As a result I'm happier, I'm more focused, I'm more hopeful for the future, my family knows me better and I know them better, and I feel far more equipped than ever before to handle whatever comes our way.

So I guess it's been helpful. 

[Mr. Analog]

"It is your right to unmask me..."

DARN YOU *shakes fist*

[Darren Dirt]

I've experienced both and found happiness in the darkest depths of a terrible job as well as finding joy in moving to something different.

The point is, happiness is how you look at things.

"happiness paradox": the diminishing returns of the happiness curve
http://www.sott.net/article/253858-Inside-the-Psyche-of-the-1

The endurance of the story of Scrooge reflects a deeply ingrained understanding that replacing compassion with a devotion to accumulating wealth will not bring fulfillment. But it is not that simple. What I call the "happiness paradox" flows from two consistent, yet seemingly contradictory findings:

1. At a given point in time, higher income is positively associated with happiness; but,

2. Over time, per capita income can rise greatly with no rise in happiness.

Let's look at the first of these. It is true that there is a positive correlation between income and happiness. People who make more money describe themselves as happier. But the diminishing returns of the happiness curve are profound. The greatest reason for the correlation is the huge jump in happiness as people move out of poverty into the world of survive-ability.

...Looking at happiness a more "objective" way suggests that it could actually have decreased at the same time that material possessions were increasing. Presumably, people who are happy have fewer bouts of major depression. If increased income resulted in more happiness, then there should have been less depression among Americans who grew up during times of greater prosperity. Exactly the opposite occurred.

...It is well documented that possessions do not bring happiness; but, then what does? Recent research has confirmed what philosophers have written and religions have preached for millennia. Happiness is associated with close personal relationships and control over essential parts of one's life.

I have rarely found such a well-articulated "explanation" of happiness -- and why money seems to "buy" it at first, but also why so many lottery winners end up miserable/dead within a few years.

[Mr. Analog]

Having wealth can contribute to happiness but it shouldn't replace it

[Tom]

Having wealth can contribute to happiness but it shouldn't replace it

I can tell you I'm a lot happier.

So is my cat now that his teeth are fixed. But damn was that an expensive vet trip ($1550~).

[Thorin]

Tom, that's explained with Maszlow's Hierarchy of Needs.  You've gone from surviving to thriving.

Money does not buy happiness, it buys things.  If those things make you happier (for instance food and shelter and basic entertainment), then the money contributed to happiness.  If the work required to get the money provides more stress than the happiness you get from the things bought with the money, then you'll be less happy.

I think the reason more people are diagnosed as depressed is because it's being diagnosed more.  In the olden days, depressed people were usually just described as cranky.  Thank the invention of Prozac for the widespread uptake of diagnosing depression.

[Mr. Analog]

Agreed, it was just accepted that someone was lashing out or was just a "jerk" or a "spinster" and that's the way it was.

[Tom]

Yeah, I wasn't trying to say that money makes me happy. I'm just happier 

Total fluke about this job too. It's like my ideal job (for the most part, I'm not a huge fan of ObjC or Java, but what can you do), and it came at just the right time.

[Lazybones]

Money doesn't make you happy, but not worrying about your basic needs does.

[Darren Dirt]

Money doesn't make you happy, but not worrying about your basic needs does.

huge jump in happiness as people move out of poverty into the world of survive-ability.