What is Happiness?

On this date, four years ago, I was a restless senior in college dreading my future. I had an idea of what I wanted to do: I would be a Food Scientist; whether I would be in Product Development or Quality Assurance, it did not matter. Any good paying job would do, as long as it was in the food industry, as long as I would get a monthly paycheck to pay for my rent and finance my growing shoes collection. I had a vision too, of what I would be in four year’s time: a managerial position, paying the mortgage for my first apartment, my black Civic would have been upgraded to a Mini Cooper, and I would have the power to move to any food company I wanted to work for. Boyfriend would be (as has always been) optional. I would be satisfied with my career and my life.

Fast forward four years. I am in a job that does not deal much with food science, and I am unhappy. I have been trying to convince myself that I like what I do, but I realized I have been lying to myself. I do not enjoy what I do, and if I had the choice, I would be handing in my resignation letter RIGHT NOW. Having said that, resigning would mean giving up, running away from the problems I experience at work. By resigning, I would be the weaker version of that person I imagined myself four years ago. Where is my resilience? My determination? Where is my fighting spirit?

Which takes me to this question. What is happiness in the work place? Is it enjoying what you do? Is it having a good group of people you work with? Is it the paycheck? Is it the status or title of your position? I see all these people I see around me and I wonder what gets them going. How many of these people actually enjoy and love what they do? Do we need that passion and love to get us through five days a week, and most importantly, keep us from losing control come Monday morning? Or is it all about the money to take home every month, regardless of our happiness?

Throughout my life, I have dreamed of the bohemian life. Waitressing at a chic road side cafe, having my own regular customers whom I need not take orders from anymore because I just know them too well. I would be living in a little studio in a charming old building, spending my nights watching the skyline and listening to the street musicians earning their living on the streets below me. I would be happy with what I do, with the small paycheck I take home, with the simple lifestyle of meeting people, watching the lights at night and listening to good jazz from the streets. Then, a very logical, non-sensical friend of mine who obviously lacks imagination would ask me a series of questions that would burst my fantasy bubble: don’t you want to save up for your future? What happens when you have children? Do you know how much our parents have spent to send us to college? So the bohemian lifestyle remains nothing but a fantasy.

Back to my search of happiness. We spend most of our time at work, and of course it is important for our mental health to be happy at work, or at least, to be able to tolerate work enough that we do not go crazy or depressed over it. So, the key here is to find something you are passionate about. But what if you don’t know what it is that you’re passionate about? Will you spend the rest of your life searching for it, or will you spend the rest of your life convincing yourself that the job that you have is good enough, that it is the one that you are passionate about?

The scariest thing is, we don’t get second chances. Time keeps going and we keep chasing it to keep up. I wonder what the college senior version of me would think of the current me now. I wonder if her idealistic view would tell me to keep searching for said passion, which would clash with the current me’s realistic view of regular paycheck to invest for the future me. And the ever elusive happiness will continue to be out of our grasps.