Thomas Bodett theorized that a person only needs three things to truly be happy: Something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to. However, while I did my happiness research it made me wonder if that was really as clear as it should be. I’m a mom with two small children, I’m never without something to do, but I’m not so sure that helping my son complete his second grade homework makes either of us happy. I have family and friends, so I have plenty of people to love, but there are moments when I can’t stand them, and a few that hurt my heart to love them. That’s not happiness. Then there’s that something to look forward to thing, should it be big or small? What if it never happens? I’m looking forward to winning the lottery, but the likelihood of that happening is pretty slim. It gets a little difficult to find happiness when your chances of success are few.
That’s when I decided to look up the definition of happiness, where I found the expected phrases like joy, pleasure, and good fortune, but there was one expression that made me take pause, contentment. To be content in something is to really only be satisfied, it’s not an overwhelming sense of joy, or a state of blissful delight, it’s just the satisfaction of a life lived. If we look at this with new eyes, let’s restate our question: How do we live a satisfied life?
To be satisfied, I believe people need four elements in their everyday tasks:
- Satisfying work
- Hope of success
- Social connections and interactions
- Meaning or purpose
More satisfying work is accomplished by doing two things: creating a clear mission with actionable next steps. Take for example the production issue that was brought to my team yesterday. One of our users discovered that one of our data feeds had been loading bad data into our application. At first glance, it’s a problem because we’ve been made aware of our mission – correct the data – but we don’t have any idea how to solve it – lack of actionable next steps. At that point, I told my co-worker that we should make our first mission not the problem, but to convert this problem into work.
- Mission – create work from problem
- Actionable steps –
- Investigation code for cause
- Investigation data for impacts
- Investigation options for resolution
From there, each of those steps can generate work with additional steps until a resolution is achieved. The satisfaction comes from seeing the steps you completed during your journey.
Still looking at my work from yesterday, there is a level of hope for success in each task because we knew it could be fixed. Did I know how to fix every piece? Certainly not, data is not my thing, I can’t seem to visualize it, and when I’m forced to take on SQL it just makes me dizzy. Hope of success for me on that step is simply overwhelming, but I do know a few other team members who don’t have that same challenge that I do, so I’ll tackle the items I can and ask for help on the parts that I can’t, then find satisfaction in the success of the whole team.
Which brings us to social connections and interactions; in the words of Tina Turner “What’s love got to do with it?” Nothing. I value and respect my co-workers. They are helpful and I look to them for guidance, or inspiration, but not love. I have a few acquaintances that I find entertaining or inspiring and I enjoy their company, but I don’t love them. There are reasons why services such as Facebook and Twitter exist, people need that ability to reach out and connect with the human experience, even if that connection is passive. Social connections let us know we are not alone, whether our experiences are positive or negative they are all a part of being human, and I find satisfaction in that not all of my experiences are unique and there are people around to help me when I need it.
Which bring us to my final point: Meaning. What’s the point of doing anything in life if it doesn’t mean anything? If the bad data was not affecting anything and no one was reviewing it anyway, what’s the point of fixing it? This is part of creating meaning or purpose to your actions. Few people create a blog in the hopes that no one will ever read it, deep down they have a desire to reach out to someone and hopeful help that person in a positive way. The single best way to add meaning to anything is to connect our actions to something that is bigger than ourselves. We need to know that as astronauts on this speck of rock that we ride around on in the middle of our galaxy, that what we do is important to the greater good, has value, and is worthy of not only our time but others’ time as well. I find satisfaction in knowing that someone is using that data I fixed to help the company recover funds, which in turn help pay me and my co-workers. My actions have meaning.
Writer, Elizabeth Gilbert, states it best “Happiness is the consequence of personal effort… You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings.” Don’t set out to find happiness, find contentment and happiness will find you.
