With graduation just around the corner, and the dark presence of “the real world” looming over my shoulder it’s been hard not to think about the future. And of course there’s that infamous question that everyone seems to ask you as a college senior -what are your plans after graduation?
My answer is always easy: I’m applying to marketing positions in California and crossing my fingers that one of them will hire me.
I’ve known what career path I wanted to pursue since my sophomore year in college. I’ve spent countless quarters and summers in college taking on internships to pack my resume. I even made a rough sketch of what I want the next 5 years of my life to look like -start at an entry level marketing position, get my MBA in market research, work my way up to a manger position, and maybe meet the man of my dreams somewhere in between. I’m not a clueless college graduate shooting aimlessly through the dark. I know what I want.
Or at least I thought I did.
I was listening to one of Oprah’s podcasts the other day with Gretchen Rubin on her book “The Happiness Project” (you should all listen to her podcasts by the way -they’re amazing) This particular podcast caught my attention because I realized that I had bought this book years ago on a whim at Costco, and it’s currently collecting dust in my bookshelf back home. Clearly I never got around to reading it, but as I was listening to her interview with Oprah I found myself resonating with a lot of the key points she was talking about.
Gretchen Rubin started the happiness project because one day she found herself asking -what is it that I really want in life? Her answer was simple, she wanted to be happy. However, she realized that she never spent any time asking herself whether she was happy, or what happiness really looked like for her.
I really related with this because as I’ve been applying to full time positions and seriously thinking about my future, I find myself asking the same question -what is it that I really want in life?
I notice that my answer isn’t necessarily to be a marketing manager at some hot shot company, but it’s the same as Gretchen -to be happy.
And like Gretchen, I recognize that lately I haven’t really been thinking about whether I was happy or what happiness looked like to me.
Over the years, I’ve been focused on chasing something I thought, or hoped, would bring me the happiness I was looking for in life. I have been so busy drowning myself in everything career related that I barely noticed when I stopped being happy.
I realize that I’ve unknowingly equated my happiness to landing an amazing career because society has taught me -and I’m sure a lot of you -that happiness and success come from the name of the company you work for and the number of zeros at the end of your paycheck.
Because of this, I’ve been feeling an overwhelming amount of pressure and stress about finding the perfect job. These pressures have taken away the joy of following my career aspirations. The truth is, I’ve stopped feeling happy along the way.
I keep telling myself that this feeling is only temporary, and that I’ll be happy again once I land that job, but I know that’s not true. My career and success are only pieces to my happiness, and as long as I keep defining my entire happiness as the name of the company I work for and amount of dollars in my bank account, I will never be truly happy.
So, after reflecting on my own life and listening to the personal stories of Gretchen Rubin and Oprah, I know that I don’t want to live a life in which I am constantly equating the amount of happiness I feel with the level of success I achieve.
Instead, I want to redefine what happiness means to me.
This means rediscovering the little things that fill my heart with joy and warmth such as watching the sunset at Gliderport, reading a book at my favorite coffeeshop, going on adventures in new places, and singing throwback songs in the car with my best friend.
However, this doesn’t mean that my career aspirations are any less important in my life. It just means that the name of the company I work for and my salary shouldn’t be the only things that make me happy. There are so many beautiful things in life, and too often do we let the pressure to be great and successful make us forget that they are there.
So, if you’re reading this and you’re feeling the same way, I really encourage you to stop and think about whether you are happy where you are. And if you aren’t -I challenge you to ask yourself what you can do to change that.