Professional happiness…an oxymoron?

May 25, 2009
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Readers of this blog are well aware that I am fascinated by the elusive planning concept of finding satisfaction with our work. Ironically, as I write today’s entry, I am currently experiencing my perfect working moment: a creative setting, a view of the harbour, and a power source for my laptop. I have escaped from my home office to the 2009 Sydney Writers’ Festival.

It seems fitting, then, that my first event of the weekend was Caroline West and The Happiness Mistake. I arrived (fashionably late) for the session that was already full. Before disappointment could set in, a friendly volunteer directed me to the overflow broadcast area on the main pier where I listened while studying the jellyfish and sipping my coffee in the sun. This is what West would call happiness state 1: a momentary pleasure.

West actually proposes 6 separate definitions of happiness that take into account complexities that include states of mind, endurance of feelings, and the source of your perception. It is for this reason that she also proposes that we abolish the word happiness altogether for something more clear and achievable.

If you are struggling with the concept of professional happiness, it is no wonder. You may not even know which happiness you are striving for. Is it maximising the number of happy life moments or working toward achieving a big aspiration? Is it measured against an internal standard or something external to you? All of these will have an impact on your pursuit of happiness. West suggests that we take the advice of Aristotle and take the time to contemplate our work.

In his book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, Alain de Botton reports that fewer than 15% of us are happy in our employment. He suggests that industrialisation drives our need for scale and specialisation. But scale does not help us find meaning in our work and meaning is what we need to increase our pleasure. De Botton suggests taking the time to find meaning in our everyday tasks much in the way one might while gardening or doing the washing up.

But the dissatisfied professionals I see most often are those who do not feel they have that much control over their work environments. The tasks (and sometimes the jobs) seem to be given and taken away at random so that the thing that gave you meaning yesterday may no longer be yours today. That’s where I think ‘Plan B’ comes in. When I worked in corporate, I always had ‘Plan B’ (I called it the ‘I quit’ plan). It was both the action plan and the savings plan that supported my mental health. Your Plan B might simply sit in a drawer at home gathering dust, but just knowing it is there can make a big difference to your professional happiness – call it a philosophy of happiness with a little reality sprinkled in.

Filed under: Business, Personal Development
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