Having a Job Does Not Make You Happy

Getting a job will not make you happy. I know many of you think that it will, but it won’t. In fact, I was reading a survey done by Deliotte Shift. It was a index survey, and they discovered that eight percent of the people who are employed today are dissatisfied with their job. Why? Because happiness is not a set of circumstances, happiness is a skill set that you take on. It’s a set of disciplines. It’s a discipline of being optimistic. That’s a discipline.

How do you implement being optimistic? You have to being to notice that the mind, which I call the drunk monkey in your head, is focused 100 percent on trying to keep you safe in situations that are not even dangerous. It’s trying to analyze what danger might come, so it’s focused on everything negative.

I was just reading an article published by Harvard University and their psychology department. They put out an iPhone app which had 2200 people give status updates on what their mood was in that moment, and what they were doing. And they received 250,000 status updates. And then, they analyzed them.

You know what they found? They found that people were the most unhappy when they let their thoughts wander, meaning when they were not focusing their thoughts on something, their mind defaulted to negativity that made them unhappy. Now, this is not new news. It’s just exciting that someone is validating it.

Your mind is not your friend. It doesn’t like you. It’s not interested in you. It’s not interested in your happiness. The mind is, number one, there to survive. It wants to steer you away from danger, so it’s going to look for those things that are potentially dangerous and negative, and focus on them. That’s going to make you unhappy because the truth is you have a relatively good life.

And yes, you may not have a job right now, and yes, you will get a job. But you’re not going to get a job if you’re a stinky jerk. You’re not gonna get a job if you’re negative, and pissed off, and freaking out, and dissatisfied. You need to start practicing principles that are going to get you into a happy and optimistic state.

And by getting into a happy and optimistic state, you’re going to feel better. When you feel better, you’re more attractive. You’re more resourceful. You’re more creative. You’re more engaging. You’re more charming. They key here is to feel good now.