Happiness is the motive behind all of our actions. Even work should ultimately serve to make us happy. It's strange, however, that so many people are unhappy in their workplace. I have specialized in combating this daily unhappiness. To do this, I use a variety of methods. One of the most important is enlightening people about the nature of happiness.
Most of us know nothing about happiness
Of course, we have all experienced very happy moments from time to time. So, we know what happiness feels like. But still, very few people are aware of how happiness works. This awareness is crucial because knowing how it works can make it easier to achieve. And that would indeed be a beneficial ability: enabling happy moments at work every day.
What science knows
Since our understanding of how to become happy is rather vague and incomplete, we should take a look at the research findings. This is worthwhile because in recent years, science has intensely studied feelings of happiness and can provide some useful insights. It has managed to identify some laws that happiness follows. Here are the five laws of happiness that we should not ignore in the workplace.
1. Happiness is self-made
This may sound like a truism. However, it is not so easy to draw the right conclusions from it. In everyday work life, it is common to complain. Very often about the boss, but also about colleagues. Also about the decisions of the management or about the work itself, which is sometimes too much, sometimes unnecessary, sometimes too difficult, sometimes too uninteresting, etc. Even the working conditions occasionally provide a good reason to grumble. In fact, there is probably no job in the world without downsides. We need to learn to deal with them if we want a chance of finding joy at work. Happiness has the quality of "nonetheless." And now we can decide whether we want to complain and suffer for a lifetime, or finally learn how to be happy under suboptimal conditions. And those who choose the latter are making an effort. They have to work on their happiness because it will not come by itself, not even in a dream job.
2. Happiness is episodic
Especially at work, we like to indulge in an illusion: we think that we just need to find our dream job, and then everything will be fine – every day and forever. But even the most wonderful dream job will come with circumstances that we do not like at all. And we have to deal with them. Even if the job were perfect, we would not be happy all the time. Simply because humans are not made for constant happiness. The reasons lie in evolution. And we will not be able to change anything about it. Consequently, our joy at work will be greatest when we manage to incorporate as many happy episodes as possible into our work every day.
3. Happiness matters more than the big
We tend to wait for the great happiness, which will be spectacular, which will shake our boring existence like a thunderclap and make our existence forever happier. This idea is nothing but fantasy. As mentioned, humans are not created for constant happiness. Therefore, many small moments of happiness count much more in sum than a few big ones. The best way to workplace happiness remains enjoying many small portions of happiness every workday.
4. Happiness needs unhappiness
This is banal, but we often forget it: a thing is always defined by its opposite. If we did not experience trouble, frustration, boredom, fear, etc. from time to time, we would not be able to recognize and enjoy happiness. Therefore, I recommend accepting negative experiences with composure instead of getting too upset or even despairing about them.
5. Happiness and unhappiness are contagious
The stronger an emotion, the greater the risk of contagion! Therefore, we should try to stay away from negative people as much as possible and at the same time be careful not to inadvertently infect others with our own bad mood. Because everything we emit will surely come back to us.
Only those who follow these rules will be happy at work
