Day 42: Choosing Happiness At Work
Work is an important part of my life. There is work I do such as writing for this project and writing screenplays. Then there is work that pays me and lets me do things like live and travel in a really nice van. That’s the work I’m talking about in this post: work you do with others.
Choosing happiness means letting go of what you think is best for something that matters more to others than it does to you.
This used to happen a lot at work. I would want to perform work of the highest quality for a project that was shared by the department or multiple departments. However, these projects were often under deadlines (a word I dislike) and meeting an expected delivery date mattered more than my ideas about quality. This would frustrate me and cause a lot of stress.
A situation like this recently occurred and I felt traditional feelings of stubbornness and perfectionism arise. But I decided to let them go. The project — or, rather, delivering the project on time — matters more to others than it does to me. I’m not happy to help achieve this, but accepting that I can help rather than fighting to make it perfect makes me happy.
Choosing happiness means staying true to things that deeply matter to you and never pandering.
Continuing on the example above, there are other work projects that matter more to me than they do to others that I can control the quality of and get spirited about. The one I alluded to above is not one of them and that is fine. For things that matter more to me than they do to others I remain open to the ideas of others but I never pander.
Pandering means giving into the neurosis of the world that’s within us all. Pandering means satisfying the fleeting ideas or fear-based thinking of others, and even myself. Not pandering can upset people and cause short-term fear within me (i.e refusing the impulse to impress and please others). But the people you want to be around don’t get too upset and any fear that arises is transmuted into energy that helps the company grow.
Choosing happiness means apologizing when you have a clear mind and realize something you said or wrote was not appropriate.
It’s easy to get wrapped up in the world and what I think I deserve or think is best. At many of the tech startups I’ve worked with, I become spirited or stubborn — sometimes both — about what should happen with something, whether that’s with a project, a promotion for me or someone on my team, or my responsibilities within the company.
This leads to saying or writing things with a strong tone. Sometimes this tone is appropriate, but many times it is not. Many times I am saying or writing something as a bit of adrenaline is pumping through me. Later, either someone approaches me about my tone or I reread or rehash what I said or wrote and realize it was not appropriate.
Before I would have been too afraid or too stubborn to apologize. These days, I try to apologize when I have a clear mind and become conscious that something I said or wrote was in bad taste. I also try to notice when adrenaline is present and to not speak or write so strongly when it is. If something is true, adrenaline is not necessary. Adrenaline may imply that something is being forced, and force is not good.
