Are you happy?

Here’s a recent story from NPR about finding happiness in your life. This is a topic that’s pretty near-and-dear to me. We all struggle to keep up with the “daily grind”. Balancing our work and personal lives is getting harder every year. Most of my adult life I’ve been a workaholic. Actually, it’s gotten much worse over the years b/c I learned a deeper commitment and got the chance to experience different corporate cultures. Working for a great firm in Strategy Consulting opened my eyes to 80+ hour work weeks and essentially “no life” outside of work. Anyway, it’s something that I wouldn’t have admitted years ago, but I can see that now. It’s hard for me to let go of work – much harder now that I’m on my own, but that’s a topic for a different post. Well, what does this happen to do with happiness? Alot. If you think about the total amount of time you are on the planet Earth in your entire life, most of that time is spent working. The reason this is so important is b/c of the two conclusions you can draw from it. First, it’s important to love what you do since you spend so much of your life doing it. If not, go get a new job. Sorry, it’s harsh, but we aren’t on this planet very long and it sucks to waste your valuable time. Secondly, you should cherish the time spent with family and friends. Let’s be clear this takes alot of effort. Carving out time away from work is not easy. Most people don’t see this as work, but in reality it is. Just my 2 cents.

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