{"id":7500,"date":"2024-03-27T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-27T12:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/therealdaily.com\/?p=7500"},"modified":"2024-03-27T12:32:38","modified_gmt":"2024-03-27T17:32:38","slug":"redefine-what-it-means-to-be-happy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/editorials\/redefine-what-it-means-to-be-happy\/","title":{"rendered":"A challenge to redefine what it means to be happy in your career"},"content":{"rendered":"

When my kids were little, I remember thinking only one thing: I wanted them to be content as they became an adult. Sure, I had hopes that they would be successful in their chosen career, but ultimately, I just wanted for my kids to be happy.<\/i><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a good thing I didn\u2019t make plans for them. I don\u2019t think I ever would have guessed that my oldest would join the Army to learn Russian, but that\u2019s what went down. Today, she\u2019s working in customer support in Dallas. Again, not what I ever would have expected. But you know what? She seems to be content in her job. They seem like a great organization, and they notice her. I couldn\u2019t ask for anything more for her.<\/p>\n

What do you want to be when you grow up?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jay Shetty<\/a>, a motivational speaker and vlogger, tells the story of a teacher who asked her students \u201cwhat do you want to be when you grow up?\u201d She got many of the answers you\u2019d expect, a dancer, a teacher, a doctor.<\/p>\n

One student answered, \u201chappy\u201d. <\/em><\/p>\n

The teacher thought that the student missed the point, but the student challenged the teacher to reconsider. What\u2019s your definition of success?<\/p>\n

Some people get lucky and work in their chosen field, while others spend thousands of dollars on a college degree and can\u2019t find a job in their industry. Maybe it\u2019s because they can\u2019t find one of the few museum curator jobs that are out there. It could be that they didn\u2019t enjoy teaching. If you aren\u2019t working in your \u201cdream job,\u201d does that mean you can never be happy and content?<\/p>\n

Changing your attitude<\/strong><\/p>\n

I always thought that being a writer meant that I had to be an author. I\u2019m not sure when my point-of-view changed. Recently, I realized I was doing exactly what I wanted to do.<\/p>\n

I am a writer. I have great clients. I live in a nice town where I\u2019m making friends. I\u2019m really fortunate in that I am able to write and work from home.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, it\u2019s easy to get swayed by the opportunities you missed and how you aren\u2019t where you thought you\u2019d be. Our careers are part of who we are, but they aren\u2019t the end-all of our world. I think a lot of us feel dissatisfied with our job because it wasn\u2019t what we imagined.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to challenge you to think your life overall. Maybe you aren\u2019t in the career path you planned, but what do you have?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have two kids and a son-in-law, who are productive members of society, and both of whom seem to enjoy spending time with me. I\u2019m in a fantastic church that accepts me for who I am. My clients are dependable and provide me with plenty of work, and I\u2019m reasonably healthy.<\/p>\n

What about you? Maybe you aren\u2019t who you thought you\u2019d be when you grew up. What do you have that makes life meaningful? If you don\u2019t think you\u2019re happy because you aren\u2019t in the right job, maybe it\u2019s time to rethink your definition of happy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you aren\u2019t working in your \u201cdream job,\u201d does that mean you can never be happy and content? Let’s rethink what happiness truly means.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":337267,"featured_media":19466,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[254],"tags":[927,253,925,926,1234],"class_list":["post-7500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorials","tag-career","tag-editorial","tag-happiness","tag-life","tag-real-estate-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/03\/women-crafting-a-cta-on-her-computter.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/337267"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7500"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19571,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7500\/revisions\/19571"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}