TOW: Happiness versus Success

This week has been a great week.  And I say that with candour.  While it hasn't been perfect, I've had a lot of fun, and often the kind of fun that can't be measured in anything than how great I've felt over the past week.  I won't say this week has been a week charmed with success and greatness.  It hasn't.  I had an interview for another unpaid position, which is a great opportunity....but it doesn't pay. 


And I kinda agree with my friend Derek that I've already done this too many times, and whether or not it looks good on my resume, I already have all the skills I want/need for that kind of position.  I could be...you know...paid for that kind of position.  So, I'm still thinking about whether I'll intern again, since I'm kinda over interning in general.  Not to mention working for free.  Would love to work with the company, but not for free.  Or unless there's some other hidden perk other than giving up my video game and nap time.

So, I gotten to thinking, how much money do I need to be happy?  How much success (which usually has a dollar sign attached to it.) do I need?  Which makes me happy, intangibles or tangibles?

Some people will tell you that the best things in life are free.  This is true and false.  The best things in life are free, but that's usually after you've already paid for all the nice things that allow you to contemplate how wonderful the feeling of family and friends are.   

Friends are great when they have money--friends are less great when they are constantly asking you for money, broke, or otherwise unable to join in the holiday christmas party because they don't have the twenty-five bucks everybody else has to particpate in this year's secret santa.  Then they're seen as Debbie downers, or complainers, or people who aren't ambitious enough, etc.

People who say things like this have probably never had to try very hard.

Or perhaps are simply incredibly insensitive.

It's funny because often I feel like the more successful I try to be, the less happy I am.  I haven't thought about this much before, but it seems to me, the more successful I try to be, the less successful I am, and consequently, the less happy.  I find the less I try to be 'successful' (whatever that means) the happier I am. 

I could have gone the gym this weekend.  I haven't yet.  I could have applied for more and more jobs, done some freelance writing, spent more time doing x, y, z, but I didn't.  And not because I don't like those things, or because I don't do those things on a regular basis, etc.

No, it's because I am coming around to an old mindset I used to have unconsciously, where I chose to focus on the good things in my life, instead of striving for the things I didn't have.


I'm not sure if that made me more or less successful, but it certainly made me happier.  I might not have the same 'things' or 'successes' that other people value, or even have some of the same degree of being 'up the corporate ladder' as some people in my age group, but at the same time, I think I spend a lot of time, when things are going well enough (ie. life not totally in the gutter) being pretty happy. 

And having spent more than enough time at the bottom of the happiness barrel, I can tell you with certainty most of it came from trying to be more successful than I already was. 

Which, given where I was in life, was relatively pointless.

So next time you have a bad day, ask yourself:  Is it because you're unhappy, or because you're unsuccessful?


For me, it was because I spent more time worrying about being successful, than being myself.