Yet it will also become clear that pursuing a career mainly because it offers the tempting rewards of money and status is an unlikely route to the good life.

First, what are the core elements of a fulfilling career? We need to know what we are actually searching for, and it turns out that there are three essential ingredients: meaning, flow and freedom.

The second question threading its way through this book is: how do we go about changing career and making the best possible decisions along the way?

Clinging onto a job that no longer suits your personality or aspirations can be like trying to hold onto a relationship that just isn’t working because you’ve grown apart.

that following our values, passions and talents is the most likely way to satisfy our hunger for fulfilment.

There comes a point when splitting up is probably the healthiest option, painful though it may be.

We can easily find ourselves pursuing a career that society considers prestigious, but which we are not intrinsically devoted to ourselves – one that does not fulfil us on a day-to-day basis.

‘Where the needs of the world and your talents cross, there lies your vocation.’

Martin Seligman calls a ‘hedonic treadmill’: as we get richer and accumulate more material possessions, our expectations rise, so we work even harder to earn money to buy more consumer goods to boost our wellbeing, but then our expectations rise once more, and on it goes.