So many people seem to judge success based on how much money one makes. This is a terrible misconception though, as success is not defined by monetary gain, but by happiness. This inspires an entirely different way of thinking about our lives; in particular our jobs. What if we didn’t strive to make money, but instead to make happiness?
When I first iterated over this article, I went back and forth on whether or not to include bullet points refining the concept. I found it difficult to articulate, because I was quick to inject my own inspirations for contentment. Everyone has a different definition of “happiness,” but there are a various ways you can look at your job in which are most encouraging. I believe I’ll continue to post on this concept, but here are a few things I find important and that could lend themselves to others as well.
1) Layout a base set of criteria that makes you happy. Like profiling an application for performance gain, you can’t know you’ve reached your goal unless you’ve set one. But how does one determine what happiness means? It’s actually fairly easy. Slow down, take a deep breath, and think about what makes you smile (smiling on the inside counts as well). What makes your entire body reverberate with that indescribable feeling?
2) Make just enough money to be able to provide these things for yourself.
3) If you make more money than you need to be happy, use it to inspire happiness in others.
4) Ensure that your means of making money contributes to your overall happiness. Sacrificing your well-being for delayed reward is a broken model. Some would argue this point, saying that there are necessary evils; Someone has to do the dirty work. But one can be content in their work, glamorous or not, based on their perception of the work itself and its benefit to the greater good.
5) Love unconditionally.
6) Add pictures of cats to whatever projects you work on. This guarantees, without the glimmer of a doubt, the happiness of not only yourself but your users as well.
Ok ok, the last one was a joke, but seriously … who doesn’t like cat pictures.
