Are you happy? Or are you satisfied?
There has always been a lot of talk, from professionals to your mother, about doing what “makes you happy”. Whether it is for work, play or just a way to unwind, we strive to do the things that bring a smile to our face. We can find happiness in a variety of places and different activities. We can be happy when we take a nice relaxing vacation to some exotic destination, or we can be happy with something simple as getting some ice cream from our favorite shop on a summer day. We know what those different activities are that make us happy. However, at some point in time we have probably engaged in one or more of these activities and still felt ourselves longing. We know we should feel happy sitting on that beach, or enjoying that ice cream, but it just doesn’t feel quite the same.
the difference in the two
In a sense, we don’t feel satisfied with those activities. Whereas happiness can come from those simple activities (like ice cream) satisfaction comes from when we work to accomplish something that took effort, time and maybe a bit of learning. These activities can fall into areas like finishing a house project, or completing a course we needed to study for. Feeling happy and feeling satisfied aren’t always interchangeable. You might feel happy enjoying that ice cream cone, but that doesn’t make it a satisfying activity. Likewise, you probably aren’t happy cleaning your home, but once it is complete you’ll be satisfied with the end result (and work that went into it). We need to challenge the idea that only doing “what makes us happy” will lead to the life we want. Because although spending time engaging in those activities that do make us happy is important, we shouldn’t expect doing them exclusively to lead to a very satisfying life.
feeling accomplished?
Both of these ideas play an important role in our overall wellbeing. We can’t maintain the same operational tempo for too long, otherwise we get burned out. We end up making mistakes, lose focus and can completely sap our motivation. We benefit from those literal breaks to do the activities that make us happy. We mostly associate this need with our professional roles, the buzzword “work-life balance” comes to mind. Our motivation to do the work takes a serious dip, so to cope with the demands of our 9-5 we take a couple days off to sit on a beach in an attempt to re-charge. We may come back refreshed, ready to hop right back into the grind. Sometimes though, that doesn’t work like we intended. We get back from our beach trip with a fresh sunburn and feel as though we need a vacation after our vacation. We still feel a lack of motivation to do the work in front of us. One of the reasons might be because we ultimately don’t find that work to be satisfying. Meaning once we get the tasks associated with our job done, we don’t feel like we accomplished anything. Finding a sense of satisfaction in an activity is also important to our wellbeing, because those accomplishments ultimately bring us a sense of fulfillment. Like mentioned before, these activities are the ones that do require a modicum of effort and work. It doesn’t need to be the arduous task like cleaning our home. It can be another type of outlet such as a creative activity like learning an instrument or something physical that challenges you. We shouldn’t rely solely on the activities that bring us happiness to bring us fulfillment, nor should we rely just on the satisfying activities to bring us constant joy.
bring the two together
Instead we need to find the cross section of these two ideas. What makes us happy, and what brings us a sense of satisfaction. We might find it immensely satisfying to cook elaborate meals with a variety of complex dishes, and sharing them with close friends and family brings us an overwhelming sense of happiness. Or the satisfaction we get from completing a challenging hike, and the smile that creeps across our face when we see the breathtaking view at the end of it. It’s in these beautiful cross sections that we find a semblance of purpose. We have that feeling of fulfillment.
It all starts with challenging the idea that the work we do in our professional lives should be enough. That our career is what defines us, we should get everything we need in regards to our happiness and satisfaction from our job. And our role should be important, impactful and have a greater meaning. This idea can lead to madness. We have needs beyond the constraints of a corporate setting. Because at the end of the day, our job can be exactly that, a job. Something we do to maintain our lifestyle that pays for the other needs we have. We need to find the happiness and work towards satisfaction to meet those other needs outside of our professional lives. And when we find the cross section of those two, the activities we put effort into for satisfaction that also bring us happiness - That is where we find fulfillment.
Fulfillment isn’t what we earn at the end of our time here. It isn’t a far off destination that we must march towards and is our reward for a lifetime of work, and we only get to experience once. Fulfillment is something we can work towards right now, by engaging in those activities in the cross section. The ones that don’t just recharge us, they are the ones that rejuvenate us. Like so much else in our lives, they need to be ours. We need to think through what it is that brings us this feeling. We can’t rely on external factors to give us the answer. What one person finds fulfilling or what societal expectations are for fulfillment, might not work for us. We know what activities elicit those feelings, and those are the ones we should expand on. Those should be the activities we strive to engage in on a much more regular basis. They don’t need to be grandiose actions that would make the front page of our hometown paper or break the internet. It can be as simple or as complex as we need it to be. Once we know what it is the brings us a sense of fulfillment, no one can take it away. We know ourselves best, and what it takes to have a sense of fulfillment.
