From Sonja Lubomirsky’s book “Myths of Happiness”
I’ll be Happy When…I find the Right Job.
- “The heart of this chapter is about the happiness myth that stokes this crisis point—namely, that whatever happiness may have eluded you thus far will materialize after you acquire the “right” or perfect job. Grappling with this myth requires an understanding of the true sources and ubiquity of malaise about your job or your level of success. Only then will you be prepared to make the healthiest choices and to take next steps.” (p.115
- “I have colleagues who change jobs often, moving their families from coast to coast every two to three years. They seem sincerely thrilled with every fresh opportunity and throw themselves anew into redesigning their work commitments and lifestyles. Then, inevitably, after a year or so, like second-year college students experiencing a “sophomore slump,” they begin to feel a bit bored or antsy or develop justifiable complaints about their new supervisor, colleagues, obligations, or daily commute. Little by little, they begin to fantasize about something out there that’s even better—a job with a more reasonable boss, perhaps, or a lighter commute, more helpful colleagues, and less burdensome obligations.” (p. 116)
- “Are they genuinely happier with each new position and, if so, does this benefit outweigh the costs of severed friendships, dislocation from roots and neighborhoods, and transfers to unfamiliar school districts?” (p. 117)
- “The excitement, happiness, and pride we used to feel happens less and less, as we focus less and less on the novelty of the job and turn our minds toward the countless daily hassles, uplifts, and distractions of life. After a while in the office or at the job site, we don’t even notice the things that used to make us smile.” (p. 119)
- “So, the job that used to be special now becomes our right and privilege. Whether it’s the boost in our compensation, authority, flexibility, or control over our time, we begin to feel that we deserve no less. We begin to feel that our novel and stimulating work experiences have simply become part of our new life—our “new normal”—and we come to expect the happiness that we now have.” (p. 119)
- “Immoderate aspirations are toxic to happiness. On the one hand, the more we attain, the happier we become. But, at the same time, the more we attain, the more we want, which negates the increased happiness. A nice example comes from the finding that people who are more highly educated are (surprisingly) less satisfied with their lives.” (p. 120)
- “One of the most effective—and the most difficult—strategies is to ratchet down our desires and curb the inflation of our expectations.230 I don’t mean that we should expect less from our jobs. We should simply not allow our desires to continue escalating to the point where we end up feeling entitled and convinced that we would only be happy if we got more and more of this or that.” (p. 121)
- “Remind yourself on a regular basis and in a tangible way what your former (less satisfying) work life was like.” (p. 121)
- “Make occasional visits to your friends’, acquaintances’, or former colleagues’ places of business and unobtrusively compare them to yours. Such observations will leave a more lasting impression on you and help you feel a sense of privilege in your own work life.” (p. 122)
- “Keep a gratitude journal—a list in your head, on paper, or in your smartphone232—that regularly helps you contemplate the positive aspects of your job. Nothing undermines gratitude like too-high expectations, and the higher your expectations, the less gratitude you will feel.” (p. 122)
- “More likely, our reference point is a fantasy job that may not really exist. Do you dream about being a pro football player, film director, senator, homicide detective, investigative journalist, neurosurgeon, best-selling author, or marine biologist? If you do, you are likely overlooking the fact that even such fabulous-sounding jobs have periods of high stress, monotony, possibly unpleasant colleagues, thankless tasks, exasperating outcomes, and long commutes. For example, the job of video game tester, ranked in the top twenty of “incredible dream jobs,”234 requires long stretches of concentration, which can be stressful and exhausting. As one such tester described her first full day of video game testing: “The last two hours, I feel nauseous. Severely so.” (p. 123)
- “I’m currently conducting a one-month-long “happiness intervention” in which participants are instructed to live the month as if it’s their last month. Their instructions are not to pretend that they have a terminal disease but rather to imagine as fully and faithfully as possible that they are about to move a very long way from their jobs, schools, friends, and families for an indefinite period of time.” (p. 124)
- “You may have noticed that many of the foregoing techniques have the consequence of heightening our appreciation for our current jobs. This is no coincidence, as appreciation may be one of the most effective ways to rein in expectations. An authentic sense of gratitude for our career is simply incompatible with an addiction to ever-increasing levels of satisfaction.” (p. 124)
- “Not surprisingly, studies have shown that comparing ourselves with others—whether it is a child noticing that his classmate has a cooler backpack or an executive finding out that she is making a higher salary than her colleague—has a profound effect not only on our evaluations of ourselves, but on our moods and our emotional well-being.244 Indeed, it’s comparisons to other people that are primarily to blame for our feelings of inadequacy and discontent.” (p. 132)
- “Instead of asking ourselves, “Does my career (or productivity or income) meet my needs?” we ask “How good is my career, my productivity, and my income compared with my neighbor’s?” Instead of feeling personally richer and richer, we instead feel that we are attaining new levels of relative poverty.” (p. 132)
- “By contrast, those of us who base our self-evaluations on comparisons with others are the unhappy ones, and the practice turns out to be rather unwise. Think about it: Feeling glum or personally deflated as a result of other people’s successes, accomplishments, and triumphs, and feeling relieved rather than disappointed or sympathetic in the face of other people’s failures and undoings is a poor prescription for happiness.” (p. 134)
- “When it comes to our vocations and avocations, numerous investigations have shown that those of us who are merely striving (and not necessarily achieving) are happier, especially when our goals with respect to work and hobbies are realistic, flexible, valued by our cultures, authentic, not materialistic, and not impinging negatively on other aspects of our lives.” (p. 136)
- “goal pursuit in and of itself imparts structure and meaning to our daily lives, creating obligations, deadlines, and timetables, as well as opportunities for mastering new skills and for interacting with others. Hence, in the course of our pursuits, we may attain a sense of purpose in our lives, feelings of efficacy over our progress, and mastery over our time.” (p. 137)
- “whether we want to be a small-business owner, filmmaker, policy analyst, insurance broker, or food blogger, we are much more likely to succeed and to be happy trying if we are working toward these goals because they are inherently interesting and enjoyable to us, or if working toward them conveys our most important values—in other words, if our motivation is intrinsic.” (p. 138)
- “Happiness does not come from outside of us; it dwells within.” As trite as this statement might seem, sometimes a truth is disguised as a truism. We may genuinely bemoan the fact that we have not yet attained this or that (while our friends have), and this bemoaning genuinely makes us unhappy, but the attainment of this or that is not the answer to our unhappiness. Distracting ourselves from toxic comparisons, concentrating on our own internal standards, and focusing on the journey in pursuit of our dreams, rather than on the end result, will redirect our attention and energies from the “I’ll be happy when __” mentality and toward more fruitful horizons.” (p. 143)