Why Can't We Be Happy?

In the past two months, I have done a disturbing amount of introspection. I’ve gotten to know myself better than I ever wanted to. Through this process, I was attempting to find the core of what made me tick with the hope that I could answer a very simple yet extremely important question:

Why can’t I be happy at work?

To be fair, I’ve always enjoyed work to a degree. I like the challenges I encounter each day and I enjoy the satisfaction that comes with solving problems and impacting the lives of others. However, this time around, I didn’t just want simple pleasures here and there, I wanted a workplace that I had to be physically removed from the office at the end of each day. I wanted to find a job that I could enjoy doing more than my hobbies.  I wanted to love my job.

This led me to think about some of the typical responses to happiness at work. Was it fame? Given the wake of countless athletes who have taken their own lives and when considering celebrities such as, Ms. Houston, who drowned in spirals of depression, it is difficult to highlight fame as a big selling point. What about fortune? Getting a bit less anecdotal and a bit more statistical, if one looks at the extreme ends of the global suicide rates, the positive effect of money is quickly brought into question:

• Haiti – 0.001% ($673 GDP/cap)
• Pakistan – 0.002% ($1,197 GDP/cap)
• Philippines – 0.0021% ($2,255 GDP/cap)
• Finland – 0.0193% ($44, 488 GDP/cap)
• Japan – 0.0238% ($45,774 GDP/cap)
• South Korea – 0.0312% ($23,749 GDP/cap)

From this quick exercise, one could almost conclude that the people in some of the richer nations are actually less happy… or at least, are certainly killing themselves more.

*I’m using suicide as an indicator for unhappiness here, which may be a poor choice, however, certainly gets the point across about the effect of some variables

The concept of ‘fit’ gets thrown around a lot. While this term is a bit ambiguous, it tends to refer to the way that an individual meshes into an organization’s culture. I, for example, should never in my life choose to work for an accounting firm or say… the military. Fit is definitely an important factor, but is it the be-all-end-all?

I would argue that all of these things – fame, fortune, fit – are prerequisites for happiness to some degree, however, they are just that: prerequisites. You need to be paid enough not to have to worry about salary. You need to get enough recognition to satiate your ego. Your organizational surroundings need to align with your beliefs, not perfectly, but enough that you can find common ground. However, beyond this, I believe that the onus is on the individual.

Our minds are disturbingly powerful tools, yet we so often neglect that power. How is it that a rice paddy farmer in mainland China can be exponentially happier than an iBanker working on Wall Street? The answer is simple: perspective. Recent work by Shawn Achor in the field of positive psychology talks about a misconception in many of the developed nations. We believe that success will bring us happiness, when in fact all of Achor’s work points to the exact opposite: happiness brings success. In short, simply by taking a positive approach to your life and work, you will be more likely to succeed and said positivity and happiness will simply perpetuate upon its self.

Perhaps even more interesting is that our happiness and positivity does not necessarily have to be sourced from the outside world or “natural.” Work by Dan Gilbert has shown that we can simulate happiness and that it provides the same physiological impact on our well-being. Happiness does not need to be found – through success, love, fame or fortune – we have the ability in our own minds to synthesise happiness. All we need to do is approach our lives and our work with the right state of mind.

So to answer my original question, why can’t I be happy at work? Maybe because I’m just not thinking about it the right way.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall

I’ve often been accused in life of being one of those do-as-I-say-no- as-I-do people, likely because I am.  For the longest time, I preached to others about the importance of introspection, self-evaluation and taking time to think about your own life and the things that have happened to you.

That said, I don’t think I started genuinely and constructively reflecting on my life until around a year ago.  While I’m sure you’re greatly enjoying looking down your digital nose right now with a smug sense of satisfaction (wipe that stupid grin off your face :-), can you honestly say that you take scheduled, structured time to reflect on your life and experiences on a regular interval?  Sure, we all say that we look back and evaluate the things that happen to us, but there is a HUGE difference between spending 5 minutes on the subway thinking about your shitty day and sitting down with a pen and paper to regularly answer some very important yet simple questions about what you’ve been doing.

I have always led a ridiculously packed life and I would argue that during the fall of 2010, my life was at its craziest.  On top of an intense academic schedule while completing a condensed, 1 year MBA, I was an executive member of two different student governments, prepping for multiple case competitions, attending every and any conference or business event I could get my hands on, training for the Toronto marathon, active in a rock band that practiced twice a week a gigged once a month AND I still maintained a healthy beer regimen.  I was a complete mess of a human being who became almost entirely task based with next to no critical thinking about how I approached my life. My friends tolerated me for the favours I was able to do for them and my roommates found me unbearable.

However, after attending a fantastic conference with a group of like-minded MBAs, someone put me onto the idea of setting aside a small amount of time each week to reflect.  While I was worried about adding the proverbial straw that might break the camel’s back (read: nervous breakdown), I figured that an extra 15 minutes a week wouldn’t kill me.  Based on a recommendation, I would answer 3 questions each week:

What did I accomplish this week?

This first question for me became more of a pat on the back than anything.  Sometimes, when individuals become so mired in the drudgery of all that they do, they neglect to sit in awe of their own accomplishments for a moment.  In addition to making yourself feel better, this question is also useful to identify where you are sinking the bulk of your time.

What did I intend to accomplish but was unable to?

Next, things start to get more critical.  Here you have to consider your goals from the week and flat out admit to your shortcomings.  The purpose of this question isn’t to beat you down and make you feel like crap, but instead to set you up for the next, and most crucial question in this process.

What prevented me from accomplishing my goals?

This is the most important question you can ask each week.  After looking at the good and the bad, you need to step back and look at the root problems. Sometimes the problems are internal – in which case, learn to give yourself a good smack – and sometimes, the issues arise from external sources – so get ready to punish someone in your life. When I first started reflecting, a number of my initial time sinks came from doing menial tasks that I shouldn’t have even been doing in the first place.  Identifying this issue over and over forced me to change my ways and learn to become a better delegator and a more hands-off leader.

These 3 simple questions became a routine every Sunday night that helped me identify some of my greatest accomplishments and the hurdles standing in my way.  Instead of blinding fighting through a seemingly endless task list, this process transformed me into a more dynamic individual who made adjustments each week in terms of how to approach life.  It wasn’t easy getting started – for the first few weeks, you will have to force yourself to sit down – however, the results were undeniable.

So the next time you have a shitty week, don’t simply drown your sorrows on a Friday night, curse about how you hate your job or take the life of a vagrant somewhere in a back alley.  Sit down for 15 minutes with a pen and paper and answer 3 simple questions.  You’ll be amazed at the things you learn about yourself.

Why Bother?

Why do we get out of bed in the morning?  Other than the obvious typical answers – to pay rent, to stock up on vitamin D, to allow bedsores to subside – I, and many others like me, seldom take the time to really think this question through.  If I’m being completely honest, I don’t think I had a very good answer to this question until this week and even now, I’d say I’m in early stages of evolution on my true motivations.

It all started with a meeting on Wednesday.  I sat for coffee with a fascinating individual who was perpetually asking the question, “why?”  We talked about career opportunities and when I spoke of the jobs I was interested, he repeated his question, “why?” After tripping over my words a few times, I eventually settled on the fact that I like to solve problems.  Once again, his persistence remained with the simple question, “why?” At that point, amid early morning frustration and confusion, I contemplated Godwin-esque rebuttals to shut the man up: I was genetically wired that way, my sisters dressed me up as a girl when young, video games had raised a child demanding simple yet immediate satisfaction… ok, I didn’t really know.

So what makes you tick?  Why do you do the things you do?  Why do you enjoy your hobbies? Why do you go to work each day? Do you even have a good answer to these questions?

I didn’t.  However, this meeting pointed me to someone who could help.  It was the work of SimonSinek that would ask the right questions and get me thinking about what I was really doing (everyone loves a good TED talk).  His work can be summarized quite simply as identifying 3 layers of our daily lives.  ‘What’ is the actual actions and things that we do.  My ‘what’ tends to involve things like using technology, writing, creating music and communicating.  ‘How’ looks a level higher in terms of how we accomplish our goals.  I use my ‘Whats’ to be a problem solver.  However, the ‘Why’ is the question that few people (including myself) get to.  In fact, as Sinek points out, ‘Why’ is where we should begin.

It took me a while, but after thinking through all of the things I’ve done over the years and major decisions I’ve made that have led me to where I am, I realized that I like making people happy.  My ‘Why’ is the enrichment of other’s lives.  While I have typical ways of accomplishing this goal, it really doesn’t matter ‘How’ or ‘What’ I do to get there.

Think about the things you do.  Think about what makes you happy.  Think about your job.  Think about your hobbies.  Think about the relationships you maintain.  Behind each and every one of these things, there is a motivation.  What’s your why?

A Rose By Any Other Name

Today, we’re going to play a little game. Every time I use a term that feels dirty (in that business way), you take a drink. It’s like the Reservoir Dogs game; every time someone swears, smokes or says a colour, knock one back.

I used to shutter at the utterance of three simple letters: M-B-A (drink). Now I have one. My transformation from a small-town farm boy into a suit, chasing top tier jobs in the consulting industry was not an easy one. However, I think the hardest pill to swallow was business terminology (and some would argue that I still haven’t caved on that point).

I can die a happy man if I never once say the word ‘synergy’ (drink) without a painful tone of irony and bile.

I’m well aware of the proper definition of this term, I simply prefer to talk about savings obtained through working together. The issue with terms like this is that they have negative momentum that I find easier to avoid than to overcome. The classic saying titling this post is often countered by pointing out the fact that very few people would be touched by receiving a dozen shitweeds. I’m diverging, but my point is simple: many business terms have taken on a similar connotation; one that often denotes disingenuous feelings. Perhaps the greatest sufferer of this condition is the concept of networking (drink).

When I started my degree, I realized that this was a term I would encounter frequently, however, I was so put off by it that I simply developed my own definition. To me, networking (drink) became the process of doing favours for others without asking anything in return. However, only recently have I realized my error. Since I seldom called any favours in, networking (drinking) had become a one-sided concept. Yet, in the new year, as I began to ‘leverage my network’ (take a couple) I realized I had only half of the equation.

Over the weekend, I was fortunate enough to help facilitate a leadership conference for a group of business undergrads. At one point, a student approached me and asked me how to network (drink). This question caught me off guard for two reasons: first, I hadn’t really thought of it before and second, once I did think about it, I realized that networking (drink) isn’t anything special.

My new definition of networking (drink) is simply making friends. I realize that in order to sell books on the topic and to publish an article of top 25 networking tips (drink 25), we have to use a special word, otherwise these writings would sound like self-help manuals for the socially inept. However, I believe our society needs a greater culture of critical thinking. Do not let simple buzz words frighten or impress you. Instead, think to the core of what is trying to be said. Business buzzwords may be used to help individuals sound more creative, however, they simultaneously confuse and deteriorate communication.

I guess my point is, the next time someone uses words like synergy, networking, competencies, downsizing or sustainability (I am so sorry to those still keeping score at home), stop and use your brain for half a second to realize that they are simply talking about savings, friends, skills, firing people or trying to be a decent human being.

If you’re not thoroughly faced by the end of this article you have either not been reading very closely, disobeying my orders, or found none of these terms inappropriate and possibly have no soul.