For 3 out of my 4 years in college, I worked as a resident assistant, which means you’re looking out for the well-being of 40-60 college students. As compensation, your room and board is covered every year.
In exchange, your home becomes your work, and it becomes difficult to ever relax. You feel like you’re always on and constantly dealing with roommate issues, underage drinking, broken bathrooms, smoking in the rooms, etc.
I used to lie in bed at 2am, trying to ignore the sound of a cramped dorm room party I needed to go break up, and think, “Once I’m done with college and move into an apartment, I’ll never have to deal with these problems again.”
Which I finally did, when I moved to Los Angeles. It was a two-bedroom in Culver City, split with two friends. One friend I shared a room with, so neither of us had our own space. The other friend used the dining room as his tattoo parlor. Between the three of us, it took about a year before the hardwood floor and granite countertops were covered with this impenetrable film you could use to line rocketships.
I didn’t have to deal with drunk residents anymore, but I still used to think, “Once I get my own apartment, I’ll never have to deal with these problems again.”
Later, I moved to New York City. No more roommates. Instead, the apartment above me seemed to enjoy moving furniture in the middle of the night, and during the day my neighbors sang Polish pop songs at the top of her lungs.
“Once I buy a house,” I thought. “Never again.”
I finally bought a house. No residents, no roommates. No dance parties raining down from above, and no singing through the walls.
Instead, thousands of dollars of repairs to make every year, just to maintain. A furnace, water heater, a washer, dryer, and dozens of other appliances you hope don’t shit the bed, because you’ll have to replace them. And a lawn that needs to be mowed according to a precise schedule.
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Everytime you move into another phase, you’ll find a new set of challenges to solve.
This seems to be true in every arena of life:
- Career – Every person who’s landed their “dream job” eventually outgrows the dream. Maybe it wasn’t as good as they imagined. Or the company changes, or they moved beyond the role. Then it’s onto the next set of challenges.
- Money – At first, you’re just trying to make rent. Then, you want to save a little, maybe invest. Later, you’re thinking about tax-advantaged vehicles, estate planning, and life insurance. Money problems are Darwinian — they’re constantly evolving.
- Love – The first challenge is meeting someone. Then there are challenges in courtship, then in marriage, and later, in raising children. It’s always love, it’s just always different.
Accept that the challenges never go away, but instead evolve. Here are some ideas I’m pondering to help navigate that world:
1) “Happiness is a state of change”
Source: Ed Latimore
Let go of the idea you’ll arrive somewhere (a role, a dollar amount, a relationship status) and everything is going to be great.
In a world where there’s always another mountain to climb, you won’t find happiness in a destination. Instead, you have to find it in the process.
“It’s the climb.”
– Miley Cyrus
Happily ever after doesn’t begin and end when Dustin Hoffman and Katharine Ross gleefully escape her wedding. Happily ever after is the process of figuring out their lives from the backseat of the bus, together yet utterly alone.
Happiness is not landing the dream job with the right salary and good benefits. Happiness is the years of hard work spent building the skills and the network and the ability to add value to an organization that’s bigger than you.
2) Embrace the hard
“The grass is greener” bias is real. Any opportunity is always going to look better than your present situation. That’s because from your point of view, you can see all the flaws and imperfections in your situation, but can’t see past the shiny veneer in the lives of others.
Of course your dream job appears so much better than your current job — you have no idea what the day-to-day grind looks or feels like.
I’ve worked about 19 jobs across 4 industries, and there’s one thing in common: They’re all hard!
The restaurant business is long hours and crazy high turnover. The entertainment business is manipulative. Building an online business makes you susceptible to changing algorithms and email deliverability issues. If you work a 9-5, it’s hard having a boss. If you’re an entrepreneur, it’s hard to only eat what you kill.
It is all hard. The only way to find happiness is to embrace the hard.
3) Life is hard, don’t make it harder
When choosing where we to live, my wife and I could have moved anywhere: Los Angeles, New York, Charlotte, Dublin, London, Mexico City, etc. Once we became pregnant, that infinite list of cities quickly shrank down to just a few.
We were guided by this rule: Life is hard, don’t make it harder.
Starting a family is hard. If we moved back to Los Angeles, for example, where we had no family and no roots, we’d just be making it harder on ourselves. Instead, we should move someplace where raising a family will be easier.
I know it sounds incredibly simple. But then why do we so often get in our own way?
- We want to save money, but subscribe to ecommerce sites and go to the mall to “browse?”
- We want to lose weight, but buy cookies and candy when grocery shopping?
- We want to stop procrastinating, but work with the TV on, keep our phones at our side at all times, check email 20x a day?
Life is hard enough. Don’t go out of your way to make it harder.
4) Follow your passion — but don’t expect to earn a living from it
“Follow your passion” has gotten a bad rep. Cal Newport argues that many people fall into “the passion trap“:
“The more emphasis you place on finding work you love, the more unhappy you become when you don’t love every minute of the work you have.”
I agree with this assessment on many levels: a dream job is only a dream from the outside. If you think you’re going to get to be “creative” and paint unicorns all day, then prepare for disappointment.
However, I also think there’s more nuance to the discussion. The other extreme, taking a job you hate because it pays well, is just as destructive to the soul.
Follow your passion, but do so with two caveats:
- Don’t expect to make a living from it. Certainly not right away, and perhaps never.
- Don’t expect your passion to stay the same. Happiness is a state of change (see #1).
5) The challenge is the end, not the means
Michael Simmons wrote a terrific post on parenthood and work. At one point, he remembers:
“I realized that what I was actually doing was resisting being a parent. When challenges came up I thought to myself, “Arghh. Why is this happening? I can’t believe I have to deal with this.” I also realized that I had unconsciously accepted that I wasn’t ever going to be a great parent.”
Being new to the whole parenthood and homeowner thing, this really struck a chord. I’ve definitely felt the same way:
“Why is this crying baby distracting me from what I should be doing?”
“I can’t believe I have to deal with this broken toilet again, this is a waste of my time.”
Treating these challenges as something to quickly deal with so I can get back to “the important stuff” is an attitude that drives a person to unhappiness. The challenges will always be there, in one form or another.
Therefore, the only path to happiness is to treat the challenge as an endeavor worthy of solving on its own accord. The challenge is the end, not simply a means. When you thrive on tackling challenges, you’ll find happiness, no matter what life throws in your way.
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Photo Credit: The Graduate
