“Be the change you want to see in the world” (Gandhi), experience a calling and work for your ultimate currency (Tal Ben-Shahar)

“ Change is necessary if we are stuck in a job that supplies us with little beyond our material needs. Had we found ourselves in a job that did not afford us our basic material needs, we would do everything in our power to change our predicament. So why do we set lower standards for ourselves when the ultimate currency – when our happiness – is at stake ? What we need if we are to implement change in our lives is courage. And courage is not about not having fear but about having fear and going ahead anyway. “

(…)

“ The psychologist Abraham Maslow once wrote that “the most beautiful fate, the most wonderful good fortune that can happen to any human being, is to be paid for doing that which he passionately loves to do.” It is not always easy to discover what sort of work might yield this “good fortune” in the ultimate currency. Research examining the relation people have toward their work can help.

Psychologist Amy Wrzesniewski and her colleagues suggest that people experience their work in one of three ways : as a job, as a career, or as a calling.

A job is mostly perceived as a chore, with the focus being financial rewards rather than personal fulfillment. The person goes to work in the morning primarily because he feels that he has to rather than want to. He has no real expectations from the job beyond the paycheck at the end of the week or month, and he mostly look forward to Friday or to taking a vacation.

The person on a career path is primarily motivated by extrinsic factors, such as money and advancement – by power and prestige. She looks forward to the next promotion, to the next advancement up the hierarchy – from associate to tenured professor, from teacher to headmistress, from vice president to president, from assistant director to editor in chief.

For a person experiencing his work as a calling, work is an end in itself. While the paycheck is certainly important and advancement is, too, he primarily works because he wants to. He is motivated by intrinsic reasons and experiences, a sense of personal fulfillment; his goals are self-concordant. He is passionate about what he does and derives personal fulfillment from his work; he perceives it as a privilege rather than a chore.

The way we are oriented toward work – whether we experience work as a job, a career, or a calling – has consequences for our well-being at work and in other areas. Wrzesniewski finds that “satisfaction with life and with work may be more dependent on how employee sees his or her work than on income or occupational prestige”.

It takes a conscious and concerted effort to find our calling, because we are  usually encouraged to pursue what we do well rather than what we want to do. Most career advisers and job placement tests, for example, focus on our strengths rather than our passions. Questions such “What am I good at ?” are, of course, important in selecting our path, but we must ask them only after we have identified what gives us meaning and pleasure. When our first question is “What can I do ?”, we give priority to quantifiable currencies (money and approval of others); when our first question is “What do I want to do ?” (that is, “What gives me meaning and pleasure ?”), our choice is driven by our pursuit of the ultimate currency. “

Source : “Happier”, Tal Ben-Shahar, Mc Graw Hill, p.100-102