Often we fail to improve our lives simply because things don't get bad enough. If your new job is hell, you’ll leave it, but if it’s just unsatisfying, you’ll likely grind it out. Thus, small problems often threaten our quality of life more than big ones.
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starts to feel as though it’s your duty to find something truly consequential to do with your time—to quit your office job to become an aid worker or start a space flight company—or else, if you’re in no position to make such a grand gesture, to conclude that a deeply meaningful life isn’t an option for you.
A recent international Gallup survey of more than two hundred thousand workers in 150 countries reported that 85 percent were either “not engaged” with their work or “actively disengaged.” In that condition, according to Seth Godin, quitting takes a lot more guts than continuing to be carried along like debris on an ocean wave. The trouble, Godin n
... See moreAiming high also means that the payoff is so far away that your life may not provide you with the steady diet of meaning and gratification that comes from doing work that fits and expresses who you really are. And the emphasis on financial success not only dissuades people from careers and lives that they might have found very satisfying but also t
... See more“success” isn’t the problem. Nice things aren’t the problem. Stability isn’t the problem. And even being a hotshot isn’t the problem. Trying to grow and improve our health, our income, our relationships, and our lifestyle isn’t a trap. But … Struggling to escape discomfort, risk, and rejection “once and for all” ... Driving ourselves like a dirty m
... See moreA helpful way to think about this is that we are caught between two forms of regret. On the one hand, the regret of abandoning a career into which we’ve put years of time, energy and emotion. And on the other, the possibility of looking back on our lives in old age and regretting that we didn’t leave a job that was not offering us fulfilment. So wh
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