Recently I went to Tenerife to hide from the cold winter. Our family stayed on the south side of the island with an endless promenade next to the Adeje beach.
On the first day I noticed a street artist making sculptures of people and animals using only his hands, sand and remains of cut-down palm trees. The sculptures were beautiful, very detailed and added a authentic flavor to the rocky beach.
We walked passed him every day as he earned some money from people passing by. Some people wanted to take pictures of the sculptures, some with the artist himself. I can only guess but he appeared to be in his mid 40s, he was wearing dirty run-down clothes, with nothing extra on him. But he looked happy. Every day for almost 2 weeks we walked passed him and he was either deep into his work, or peacefully resting in a shade nearby.
Despite him not matching the conventional picture of a successful person, my impression was that he has it figured out, he was happy.
I am happy.
When you say it you feel vulnerable, as if someone might take it away from you, as if you might jinx it. Too many people in the world are not happy, some will come out and say it, others will be betrayed by their actions.
There is no single recipe to happiness, you might find it in different ways. However early on we are forced to believe that path to happiness lies in wealth and respect. Unfortunately we are often tricked into this illusion.
When I started working as a developer I was just happy to get the opportunity. The chance to learn, to gain experience, to meet new people. I was doing what I wanted at the time and that was completely enough.
I was learning everything I could, working as much as was needed to solve the next problem. I was always up for a challenge. Overtime was never a problem, getting up early to do deployments was not a problem and staying up late to help solve a critical bug was fun.
I was highly driven to become the best version of myself, and I believed taking opportunities would get me there.
I was lucky to wind up in a company that rewarded my efforts. Over a span of a few years I grew to a senior role, getting multiple salary increases across the way. Over this time my salary increased approximately 10 times.
It is funny that the biggest increase I got was also the one that I felt least satisfied about. It turned out it was never about the numbers.
You can call it a need for validation, or wanting to be the best, or just ego. Whatever it was it got worse over time.
People seem to think that earning more would make you content, make you happier and that there would be a point where you can be comfortable. More often it makes you think you deserve even more, raises your expectations and staying where you are is almost never enough.
But how much is enough? Is there such a thing? That kid working overtime for pennies was genuinely happy. So was that enough?
I have realized that enough has little to do with numbers. Depending on where you are in life it could be an opportunity to learn, working with people you like, or just enjoying the work you do daily.
So how come a lot of us end up chasing the illusion? How did that kid with endless passion fall into this trap?
People want to be something, we want to be respected, we want to feel special, we want to be seen as successful.
In our society success is measured by wealth and status. Inevitably our values are tied up with that.
I am not saying we should all quit our jobs. Having money is better than not having it. Our basic needs like food, water, health and security are easier to get if you have money. But I think a lot of us miss the milestone where our needs are covered and keep striving for more of the same.
It is like we are blind to see that money is just a means to an end, and can not replace the other pieces of the happiness puzzle. We are willing to trade our time and passion for more money that we don’t really need.
Even worse, this attitude can get you stuck somewhere you don’t want to be. Like a job you hate but can’t quit because you have to pay for that mortgage and car you didn’t really need. As long as you keep the job you can easily pay for that and more, but your day to day life is becoming unbearable. You and your family suffer because of it. No wonder there are so many people experiencing midlife crisis.
Focus on money is likely to drain out the passion as well, and end up affecting the quality of your work. You will do just enough to make the money, and no more.
But in a way, our society teaches us to respect the illusion. That person on the brink of midlife crisis is considered a success. That person has become a role model for society.
But how does that make sense? That person is not happy, and more often than not making life difficult for others. Why should anyone strive for that?
And then you hear excuses — she is just stressed from work, give her some slack she had a tough day. Or — he puts food on the table, he has the right to do this or that…
I wish we would stop that. Just be honest. You are always in a bad mood and stressed because you hate your job. You made some decisions in life that were not great for your dreams and values. Own up to them.
It is not too late to change, it just takes a lot of courage. You need to take a step towards what you want, perhaps taking a step back in the eyes of society.
It is ok to spend your days making sand sculptures on the beach as long as you are happy.
