This might sound like a ridiculous proposition, because many would assume that when you achieve success, you’re probably pretty happy. Take Alexander Ovechkin, for example. Having signed the first $100 million contract in NHL history and achieving all sorts of success as a professional hockey player, you would think that Alex is pretty happy right now. He probably is. Speaking for the rest of us, however, you can start to see that there are definite trade-offs in the decisions that you make and you may ultimately have to choose between success or happiness.
Consider this. By and large, I enjoy my career as a freelance writer. It’s great having the relative freedom to set my own working schedule and, to a certain extent, earn as much money as I want. That said, if I didn’t have to worry about money, I probably wouldn’t be writing nearly as much as I do and I wouldn’t be taking on quite so many clients. Given the choice, I would probably be happier playing Guitar Hero III right now, instead of writing articles on CES 2008.
To be successful as a freelance writer, I need to produce quality content in a timely fashion. I need to spend a significant amount of time in front of keyboard, soliciting new clients and delivering top-notch writing. It is because of this dedication and work ethic that I have come to be known as some sort of expert reviewer. I wouldn’t say that I am totally successful as a freelance writer just yet, but I do feel that I am heading down the right path. Does this mean that I am happy? Not necessarily. No one likes long hours.
Even when you consider some of the highest ranking executives in multi-national companies, they are oftentimes sacrificing some of their happiness in order to achieve their success. They’re chasing money, because they feel that having a significant amount of wealth is a critical aspect to success. For this reason, they put in long hours at the office, participate in less than pleasurable tasks (who likes meetings anyways?), and take on projects that they would rather leave for someone else. All the while, their family life may suffer and they’re left with less time to spend on their hobbies. Instead of a fishing trip, John Doe is stuck dealing with TPS reports.
Unless you have mounds of wealth and you don’t need to worry about any sort of monetary gain, you absolutely have to choose between success and happiness. I’m most happy when I’m spending time with my family and friends, perhaps watching a movie or playing some video games, but during that time, I’m not making any money and I’m not furthering my career as a freelance writer. On the flip side, when I’m bashing away at a computer keyboard, staring at the LCD monitor, I’m not playing video games and I’m not enjoying quality time with my family.
As with all things, I think the best strategy to take is to find a healthy balance between the two. No matter how much you love your job, there will inevitably be times when you wish you could be doing something else. Go ahead, take a break, because being successful without being happy just isn’t worth it.
To me, happiness=success. Since you are so unhappy at being bogged down with CES articles, I am successful 🙂
I think I agree with Leo (there must be some inside joke there I don’t know). Happyness is a part of success (I used Chris Gardner’s spelling for happiness there on purpose).
It is your definition of success. Yes, you can be successful at many things and be unhappy. That would not fit my definition of success.
There also those (who happen to be very successful) that teach that success is not a point that you reach.
The inside joke is that I got to go to Las Vegas for CES and enjoy a bunch of free swag, parties, booze, and so on… and Leo didn’t.
But yes, I think both of you are right and it was almost the point that I was trying to get across in this post. You can be wildly successful in terms of money and career, but if you’re not happy, it’s not worth it.
That almost begs the question: what makes you happy? Perhaps this is fodder for a future post.
Which reminds me that I forgot to spit in your pho last Saturday.
This is a great topic and is something that I have been kicking around in my own life recently. While I feel that I have reached a certain level of success in my career, I cannot say that I am happy with what I am doing right now (at the day job).
While finding a job you truly love is ideal, you made a great point that there will still be times where you want to be doing something else. However, I don’t necessarily consider that being unhappy.
Over at Dad Balance, I recently referenced quotes from Steve Jobs and Donny Deutsch (heard it from him) about happiness and being in the right career. When you find that you are unhappy more often than you are happy, that is when you need to seriously consider a change.
For myself, I think it’s more a sense of burnout than it is unhappiness. I wouldn’t trade my freelance writing career in for a conventional day job, largely because of the freedoms and sense of control that I currently enjoy. That said, it’s easy to get burned out when you know you can be making money instead of playing Guitar Hero.
That is a very important distinction between burnout and unhappiness. Lately I have been in more of a project manager role and that has resulted in some level of unhappiness, as I preferred my role as a developer – which is where I was happier but did go through periods of burnout.