I used to work in an industry with a dreary outlook. everyday i will go to work, plug into a telephone set, and talk to credit card debtors dictated by a computer system and haggle them for their overdue payments to the bank. you can imagine what my colleagues and I have to face everyday, liars, debtors, complainants, and other generally negative work life. Talking to unhappy people for the sake a dollars and cents, every single day is not going to make me a very happy person.
I have since switched to another industry which i am immensely happy to be in. In the recruitment line, I helped ‘match make’ good people to companies, and for the record, it is not an easy job. Hell, it is easier haggling debtors for payments! But i am happier. the output is a lot more constructive. I help build people’s career, whereas on the previous job, I orchestrate a debtor’s financial demise.
I am aligned by my happiness. Happiness is my baseline, and that guided me into this tough job as a recruiter. I’d trade a well paid, unhappy job, for a lower paid, happy job anytime.
that is not always the case. Where i am working now i still see unhappy people, troubled colleagues, money woes and other hazards. I have a good bunch of colleagues to work with and it always eats me to know that the level of happiness between me and some of them are gaps apart, although some of them are earning many folds what i am struggling with. Why?
Comparing this, I am a family man, with wife and two kids all looking towards me for an income. I have a house to support, bills to pay. I come home to a mad house, having to iron my own clothing, fix whatever is broken in the house. my colleagues are mostly more than 5 years my junior, single, staying with parents, no mouths to feed, nothing much ado about nothing, and yet, they have more gripes than me.
Why?
