Have you ever wondered how many hours will you be working in your entire life? Broadly speaking, a person who is actively employed from the time he/she finishes the studies until he/she is retired, works more than 80.000 hours! Something which represents more than 30% of hours in which one is awake in adulthood.
Considering these data, it is clear how difficult is being happy if you are not at work.
Who knows someone who remains bitter because of doing a job reluctantly? This kind of people suffer every Sunday afternoon thinking that they have to return to work on the following day; and, also, on working days since they wake up till they go to bed, thinking about the following day… This misfortune is reproduced in the other areas of their life and it is spread to the closest environment. It usually happens in people who blame their misfortune on others: on the company where they work, on the colleagues, on the team leader, on the family, or on the government. So they are not held responsible. They are not able to turn the situation, to change their professional lives. Often for fear on being uncertain, on losing security; but also for laziness, for lack of trust in themselves.
We all know someone who sure loves his/her work, though. Man and women who go daily to their workplace with enthusiasm, with pleasure; who live intensely every single day of the week; who do not count the hours; who feel fulfilled with what they are doing. They transmit their enthusiasm to their closest people −familiars, friends and colleagues−. They have a positive attitude and tend to achieve their goals. But when the circomstances change and this intensity of living disappears, it is when they search new opportunities and take decisions. Looking for a new job, changing the work position, or the company or industry. Or preparing examinations. Or starting their own business. They are not afraid of the new challenges; on the contrary, they face them with courage, trust and conviction.
So, how do they manage to be happy at work?
There is a group of people who have a clear mission; sometimes since the childhood, other times, it appears later at maturity. They are clear on the trade, the job where they put their lives on the line. They are dreamers. They have an objective: they plan it with enthusiasm, constancy and engagement. They do not totally achieve it, but fight constantly which is something that inspires and helps them move forward. Most the successful professional, famous artists and elite sport players respond to this model.
But not everybody has a defined vocation. There is another group of people who doubt at the time of choosing the job or what to study. Even doubting, though, they take decisions, follow their instinct, take advantage of the chances and experience that. And they do it with open mind and optimism. With the desire to learn to love what they are doing. Trying to do their best. Service to others. With pride. Doing their duty. And in lots of cases, like the Steve Jobs’s speech at Stanford, when they look back and connect the diferent points of their career, everything makes sense.
And what do these two groups have in common? Their attitude. We talk about rebel, independent and responsible people working eagerly. With passion. With effort.
Being happy at work only depends on ourselves, and with the appropriate attitude we all can say aloud: ‘I am what I want to be!’
