“It does not seem to be true that work necessarily needs to be unpleasant. It may always have to be hard, or at least harder than doing nothing at all. But there is ample evidence that work can be enjoyable, and that indeed, it is often the most enjoyable part of life.”
No one said that life was going to be easy, nor should it be. Life is going to be a struggle and it’s going to be a challenge, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy it. The exact same thing can be said about our career choices.
Is It Friday Yet?
You can go begrudgingly to a job for 40 (or more!) hours a week, seeing that job as a necessary means to an end. Bills have to be paid and that job seems like the most viable way to get the money to pay said bills. You work, so to speak, for the weekend. That’s when you can actually enjoy yourself. Your days at the office are what you do to “earn” that well-deserved break.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
As psychology professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says in Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
Hard Work Can Be Fun
Perhaps a good example of this is the lives of professional athletes (even if we cast aside the giant salaries that they can earn). It’s hard competing at that level, day in and day out. It’s hard having to prove yourself every time you step out onto the court, field or rink. It’s hard putting up with all the scrutiny you get from the fans and from the press. But you love the game. And you love competing. And you love winning.
We have to remember that doing what you love does not mean that you’re going to love every moment of it. There are going to be hard times that are less pleasant, but those great moments make it worthwhile… even if they’re incredibly difficult, challenging or trying. As hard as it may be to believe, we all still want to work. We just have to find the right kind of work that fits our skill sets, our preferences and our passions. We do best in jobs where we can lose ourselves.
Achieving a State of Flow
And this is at the heart of Csikszentmihalyi’s philosophy on life, work and happiness. His theory is that we are happiest when we are in a state of flow, when we are so concentrated and so absorbed in the task at hand that the rest of the world just fades away. You can see this with musicians especially who lose themselves in the moment. The same is true with artists and other creative types, but even accountants, coders, and carpenters can experience this same sense of flow. It’s not dependent on the career choice; it’s dependent on you.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi gave a TED talk on the subject of “flow” and the video of that is embedded below.
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