Why I choose to be happy

I came across a speech by David Foster Wallace, an American writer and novelist through a social media share. If you haven't seen it yet, here's the link to the full speech he delivered to the Kenyon College class of 2005 ... trust me, it will be 20 minutes well its worth.

As Wallace puts it, learning after all is 'choosing what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience'. He drew the fish analogy with a little mantra - 'this is water'; reminding us how hard it is to talk about the most obvious, most important things in our lives.

As a manager, over the years I have interviewed folks who are looking for the next challenge in their career or sat in exit interviews with folks who have had enough of certain things, and wanted to move on. Both groups had something in common - they were often not too happy about today, and seeking a brighter tomorrow. While there is nothing wrong with this transition or anticipation (having gone through it several times myself, my 'default setting' tells me I know it for sure), quite often the most basic question we fail to ask ourselves is, what will really make us happy? So if you are finding yourself in this transition lounge little too often, maybe its time to ask a question or two.

Perception in our mind, which Wallace quotes the cliche of 'terrible master', is often pushing us from one edge to the other. Folks who complain about how all the travel in their job is running them down, talks about the travel bug biting them after couple of weeks at home. Getting sick of terrible, late running, always-on-alert project folks will complain about no challenges in their lives after one or two smooth runs. And do I need to mention the topic of what the job pays - that's everyone's bugbear. Just so I am not offending anyone, I am quoting all these from feelings I had at different phases of my own career.

Truth is, we are all complaining about the most trivial things in our lives. We forget happiness is a state of mind and we can choose to be happy in what we do or we can choose to do what makes us happy.

So as you drive back home to beat the afternoon traffic, what will you be thinking?

Peace, woofmain

Note: This is a modified version of the post originally posted by me on #LinkedIn on July 11, 2014