On work and happiness

For me, work isn’t about money. Money is great and I need it to survive, but I don’t need a six-figure salary to be able to enjoy my life. 

Enjoy. That’s the key word there.

For the longest time I’ve done what I thought I needed to do in order to get a good salary and “ahead” in my industry. It’s taken me to some spectacular places, but it’s also driven me into the ground. I’ve had a lot of highs and lows in my career and one thing I’ve come to realise is, money doesn’t mean shit if I don’t have a good life.

If I’m not happy, not balanced and not taking care of myself mentally and emotionally, then money is just a number sitting in an app on my phone. It’s extra clothes I don’t need, shoes I never wear and sparkly eyeshadow sitting in my bathroom draw waiting to be used, only to collect dust because I’m too busy working to go out and wear it. If I’m not happy, money is just a way for me to try and fill a hole that deep down, I know I can’t fill with material things. I can’t fill this hole with pretty glasses and coffee plungers, I can only fill it with things that truly make me smile.

When I think about work, I think about how I’d love to be working in a place that doesn’t feel like work at all. It just feels like something I do to fill the time between adventures. I enjoy the people I see, the things I’m learning and the words I’m stringing together to help elevate the honest and interesting business I’m working for. 

Work shouldn’t be something I have to do to support my lifestyle, it should align with my lifestyle. Make me feel some sort of excitement when I enter that world. It shouldn’t make me feel chained to a screen, like just another number in the system with no beating heart or feelings. It should make me feel like a person whose talents and skills are contributing to a bigger picture, to a community that appreciates the help and nurtures my capacity for growth. 

A lot of people will tell me this is crazy. That this kind of thing simply doesn’t exist. Or perhaps they’ll tell me that this sort of thing won’t help the economy, that people like me who aren’t willing to “normal” jobs are what’s making the world so much harder to live in. All of us creative types, trying to follow their “passions” rather than just getting their hands dirty and doing the work that needs to be done. 

If anyone is thinking of telling me this though, they can enter my work world and see how they like sitting at a desk all day, with no one really acknowledging your presence. With no one thanking you for your patience, or your commitment, while they consistently continue to take work away from you until you’re sitting at your desk, feeling locked to a small screen, when you have nothing to do. 

You’re sitting there, with no purpose. You search for more work, but it quickly dries up as the work is given to someone else, or you do it all so quickly that you empty the basket before lunchtime. Other people get congratulated and thanked for the work you’ve just done, but no one thanks you. No one acknowledges that you have just done the same thing in a smaller time frame and with more precision. To them you’re simply a name on a screen who’s sometimes there, and sometimes not. Nothing more. 

If you live that day in and day out, and don’t feel a sense of loneliness, frustration, anger, and hopelessness. Only then can you tell me that following my happiness is the wrong thing to do.