For A Successful Life, Diversify Your Sources of Happiness
In finance, a smart investment strategy is one that doesn’t put all your eggs in one basket. This makes sense. You don’t want to invest all your money in the real estate market in Miami only to see one day that it was all washed away in a big storm.
That would not make for a happy life.
But it’s the same with the things that take up your time, especially when it comes to your job.
You don’t want to build a life that relies only on one source of satisfaction.
Because someday the music will inevitably stop. It’s a scientific certainty.
You need something else.
As with your financial investments, you need a diversification strategy for your life.
I spent years in graduate school toiling in the lab doing experiments. And, in my field of study (biology), things are notoriously hard to figure out.
Some weeks were very rough. I would spend 12 hours in the lab every day, come in on the weekends, turn down social invitations, and still get nowhere in my work.
On the other hand, when things were good, they were really good.
But it was hard to predict.
From one week to the next, I might be loving life or hating life. It was often completely out of my control.
I finally learned that I couldn’t rely only on my work to be my only metric for success and happiness. I couldn’t let this dictate how I was doing. It was too much pressure.
I needed something else.
Otherwise, it was like putting all of my expectations in a proven con man. It was like relying on a slot machine as my only source of money and contentment.
It was a losing investment strategy.
It took this relatively extreme experience to teach me that I needed to diversify my life right away.
It seems obvious now, but there were years when I was under the illusion that when things weren’t going well I just needed to work harder.
I know people who work in other fields who have the same ideas. When work is piling up or when they’re stuck on something, they just need to work harder and work more.
Hours in the office are a proxy for how much is getting done.
I sacrificed countless hours and copious amounts of energy on this strategy. But it would only sometimes result in me getting ahead.
Often, it would be an enormous disappointment.
In the meantime, I stopped seeing my friends, I lost track of my hobbies, I wasn’t going to the gym regularly, I wasn’t sleeping well, and I wasn’t eating my veggies.
If this wasn’t bad enough, when things didn’t go well in my work — and they often didn’t — I was even more of a disaster.
I realized that I needed other things in my life that I could rely on for my happiness. I am not a robot, no matter how hard I wish I could be sometimes.
I needed hobbies. I needed friends. I needed time with my family.
A recent article published in The Atlantic sort of addresses what I’m describing. It’s entitled, “Workism Is Making Americans Miserable.” In it, the author, Derek Thompson, notes:
He goes on to tell us that this new religion, concentrated among American college-educated elites, is failing to deliver transcendence.
He cites Gallup’s finding that 87 percent of Americans are not even engaged at work.
He acknowledges that though some people do like their jobs, and have achieved balance, many people don’t know what else to do with their time and energy.
I’ve heard Thompson interviewed on podcasts about this article and he has admitted that he’s guilty of workism, too. He swears he loves his job though.
But he also argues that it’s simply not possible that everyone gets satisfaction from this singular focus on work.
My article is not only about workism — it’s about diversifying your life.
If you’re singularly obsessed with some hobby, some person, or some other noun, that is probably not a good thing either.
I’m arguing that we all need more than just one source of happiness to have a successful life. Workism is an example of when this balance is out of whack — and it’s unfortunately a common one.
It was the trap that I fell into.
But I learned that I didn’t have to do this anymore.
Like any good scientist, I learned from experience that when I focused on other sources of joy besides work I started to become happier.
I did the experiment, I made the observations, and I made some conclusions.
Interestingly, in a seeming paradox, I began to have more success in my work when I focused less on it. I became more productive because I was more present and more efficient.
I implemented a couple of mandatory changes in my life:
And, most importantly, I started telling my boss and collaborators one simple word: “No.”
These changes forced me to think about something else for a change.
It freed up some time for me to find something else to do with my time.
Coming in all weekend and working late into the night was not an option anymore. After all, it had failed me. I had to get my sh*t done and get the hell out of there.
At first, I didn’t know what to do with all this extra time. I thought, “I would rather be working right now.”
But, over time, I rediscovered a lot of old hobbies like watching movies and reading books, and I started new hobbies like blogging and cooking. I spent more time with my husband. I made time for more friends. I explored my amazing city.
And it’s more sustainable happiness.
Also, I’m more successful at work.
I use the word “successful” deliberately here because I’ve redefined it for myself.
To me, success now integrates sustainability, balance, and other metrics of how I’m doing — not just how I’m doing at work. It’s not only based on output and performance and congratulations.
Today, my life is more than that.
I’ve diversified.
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Email: Cee.Vinny2@gmail.com
For A Successful Life, Diversify Your Sources of Happiness
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