Do you need to love your job to be happy?
4 September 2012
Read by 1634 persons
Flourishing in one's profession is a strong aspiration for many of us. But because we don't do the right job or we do it in bad conditions, this is not always possible. What are the real reasons for our professional frustrations? And how to put work back in its rightful place?
“A punishment for original sin, which one strove to accomplish as quickly as possible and then forget in alcohol and religion”… This is how work was once perceived, says Alain de Botton, writer and journalist, author of Splendeurs et misères du travail. The Enlightenment radically changed the situation. “While Aristotle did not believe that one could be happy by being obliged to earn a living – our freedom being ill-suited to constraint – the philosophers of the 18th century saw the possibility of finding a form of fulfillment in the exercise of one's profession.” Today, it is a cultural obligation. “In our society of personal fulfillment, work has become one of the main vectors of self-realization,” confirms sociologist Vincent de Gaulejac. To the point that even when we hold a job that does not passion us, we seek to find interest in it. Our conception of work is now intimately linked to a notion of personal enrichment. “Ideally, we aspire to use a precious part of ourselves to obtain a comfortable income,” notes Alain de Botton. “It seems simple. It's monstrously complicated.” Because in reality, “what an employer expects from an employee is not that he enjoys himself – even if he encourages him to do so – but that he contributes to the profitability of his business, one not always being compatible with the other,” observes Vincent de Gaulejac.
Not reducing oneself solely to one's activity
“It is because we put a lot of ourselves into it that work exposes us to disappointment, even to deep narcissistic wounds,” continues the sociologist. “Because if our performance is not suitable, it is our whole person who is no longer suitable.” The more a profession requires creative or relational skills, the more frequent this confusion between the value of an individual and that of his work is. And we are the first to maintain it when, for example, “we question the people we meet about their activity, presuming that we will thus discover something of their identity,” indicates Alain de Botton. But also by clinging to the notion of vocation. “This idealized form of professional fulfillment is actually a deception,” believes Pierre Blanc-Sahnoun, coach and psychotherapist. “Because this passionate profession to which we believe ourselves destined is most often a borrowing: a tribute to a parent or an ancestor, which we try to render by taking up the torch of their frustrated desires.” In any case, not exercising the activity we dreamed of is a very real suffering.
Éric, 35, saw himself as a press cartoonist and found himself designing packaging. “I had the impression of not being recognized for what I was deeply,” confides the young man, who finally resigned. Terribly frustrating, these renunciations due to poor orientation or the need to earn a living lead to a “devaluation of self-image that is difficult to restore,” thinks psychoanalyst Marie-Hélène Brousse.
Having the feeling of being useful
Exercising the profession of one's choice but in bad conditions is another reason for dissatisfaction. Françoise, 39, a nurse in a psychiatric hospital: “We are asked to improve relationships with the patient, to be more profitable in care, and we are cut positions. The contradiction is untenable.” Situations that generate internal conflicts are numerous: failing to balance work and private life (women know how delicate this exercise is), facing a dilemma between one's mission and one's values… Georges, 62, former director of human resources in a telecommunications company, was thus forced to carry out redundancies that he disapproved of. “I lost sleep over it,” he assures.
“What pleases us, at the end of a working day, is having been able to bring about an improvement in someone's life,” says Alain de Botton. “It is not necessarily about great changes. Oiling a hinge, helping to find lost luggage can be very rewarding… Industrialization has made this feeling of being useful more abstract. Unlike the artisans of yesteryear, who knew their clients, factory biscuit workers, for example, have lost the benefit of knowing those who enjoy their production…”
“When work loses its ethical, moral, and logical meaning, we silence our sensitivity, but the discomfort has repercussions on our private life and our health,” warns Philippe Davezies, researcher and teacher in medicine and occupational health at Claude-Bernard University in Lyon. “Hence absenteeism, hence depression,” adds Marie-Hélène Brousse. “Especially if something, in the execution of our task, contradicts a requirement deeply rooted in our education,” such as being forced, to meet deadlines, not to be too demanding about quality, when one has been raised in the valorization of work well done.
Taking a step back
“Even today, two conceptions of work clash,” summarizes Alain de Botton. “Schematically, the one inherited from the working class, for whom working is only a means (to feed their family, to afford free time), and the one inherited from the middle classes, who see it as an end in itself, a condition indispensable to happiness. In times of crisis, the first vision tends to prevail, one rejoices in having a job, whatever it may be.” A pragmatism that does not prohibit wanting to improve one's professional situation, without waiting for it to completely fulfill.
“First step: take a step back to be able to think,” recommends Nathalie Bouclier, a business coach. A few days off can help break the rhythm and begin to identify the difficulties: what are our needs (for structure, team, creativity) and our main frustrations (lack of freedom, recognition)? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the position we hold (responsibilities, salary, quality of life…)? “Ask yourself a simple question,” suggests the coach: “If you had to leave everything tomorrow, what would you miss the most?” In the negative, some things become obvious: colleagues, the place…
Sometimes, it will be enough to modify a few parameters (move your office, work from home one day a week…). But often, “we realize that we have always determined ourselves according to external pressures, not our needs.” Therefore, it is this feeling of sovereignty that we must strive to restore, “by allowing ourselves to formulate our desires, even the wildest ones, so as to revive energy,” encourages Nathalie Bouclier. A skills assessment can prove useful to transform dreams into realistic objectives.
Seeking happiness elsewhere
“What weighs most heavily is not the objective conditions in which we work, but the way we look at our activity,” points out Alain de Botton. “When suffering sets in, detachment work is essential.” If necessary, one will seek in therapy “what, in our history, leads us to accept or reject a job on which others have a very different view than ours,” advises Marie-Hélène Brousse. Finding out what family injunctions, what fragilities in self-esteem have guided our path can help us to make the situation evolve.
“Putting work back in its rightful place is vital,” certifies Marie-Hélène Brousse. “We must accept the fact that the ideal job does not exist, that professional life is not everything, and that we cannot have everything at the same time.” What is lacking in our work can and should be cultivated elsewhere. Carole, 46, an educational advisor, joined a choir: “Since I've been singing, my professional difficulties have taken on acceptable proportions, they no longer overwhelm me so much…” Alain de Botton says he is “very marked by this precept of Saint Augustine who says that judging a man by his social position is a fault. We must remember that we were valuable individuals before we started working and that we will still be so long after we have stopped doing so.”
Psychologies.com
Posted online on September 4, 2012.
“A punishment for original sin, which one strove to accomplish as quickly as possible and then forget in alcohol and religion”… This is how work was once perceived, says Alain de Botton, writer and journalist, author of Splendeurs et misères du travail. The Enlightenment radically changed the situation. “While Aristotle did not believe that one could be happy by being obliged to earn a living – our freedom being ill-suited to constraint – the philosophers of the 18th century saw the possibility of finding a form of fulfillment in the exercise of one's profession.” Today, it is a cultural obligation. “In our society of personal fulfillment, work has become one of the main vectors of self-realization,” confirms sociologist Vincent de Gaulejac. To the point that even when we hold a job that does not passion us, we seek to find interest in it. Our conception of work is now intimately linked to a notion of personal enrichment. “Ideally, we aspire to use a precious part of ourselves to obtain a comfortable income,” notes Alain de Botton. “It seems simple. It's monstrously complicated.” Because in reality, “what an employer expects from an employee is not that he enjoys himself – even if he encourages him to do so – but that he contributes to the profitability of his business, one not always being compatible with the other,” observes Vincent de Gaulejac.
Not reducing oneself solely to one's activity
“It is because we put a lot of ourselves into it that work exposes us to disappointment, even to deep narcissistic wounds,” continues the sociologist. “Because if our performance is not suitable, it is our whole person who is no longer suitable.” The more a profession requires creative or relational skills, the more frequent this confusion between the value of an individual and that of his work is. And we are the first to maintain it when, for example, “we question the people we meet about their activity, presuming that we will thus discover something of their identity,” indicates Alain de Botton. But also by clinging to the notion of vocation. “This idealized form of professional fulfillment is actually a deception,” believes Pierre Blanc-Sahnoun, coach and psychotherapist. “Because this passionate profession to which we believe ourselves destined is most often a borrowing: a tribute to a parent or an ancestor, which we try to render by taking up the torch of their frustrated desires.” In any case, not exercising the activity we dreamed of is a very real suffering.
Éric, 35, saw himself as a press cartoonist and found himself designing packaging. “I had the impression of not being recognized for what I was deeply,” confides the young man, who finally resigned. Terribly frustrating, these renunciations due to poor orientation or the need to earn a living lead to a “devaluation of self-image that is difficult to restore,” thinks psychoanalyst Marie-Hélène Brousse.
Having the feeling of being useful
Exercising the profession of one's choice but in bad conditions is another reason for dissatisfaction. Françoise, 39, a nurse in a psychiatric hospital: “We are asked to improve relationships with the patient, to be more profitable in care, and we are cut positions. The contradiction is untenable.” Situations that generate internal conflicts are numerous: failing to balance work and private life (women know how delicate this exercise is), facing a dilemma between one's mission and one's values… Georges, 62, former director of human resources in a telecommunications company, was thus forced to carry out redundancies that he disapproved of. “I lost sleep over it,” he assures.
“What pleases us, at the end of a working day, is having been able to bring about an improvement in someone's life,” says Alain de Botton. “It is not necessarily about great changes. Oiling a hinge, helping to find lost luggage can be very rewarding… Industrialization has made this feeling of being useful more abstract. Unlike the artisans of yesteryear, who knew their clients, factory biscuit workers, for example, have lost the benefit of knowing those who enjoy their production…”
“When work loses its ethical, moral, and logical meaning, we silence our sensitivity, but the discomfort has repercussions on our private life and our health,” warns Philippe Davezies, researcher and teacher in medicine and occupational health at Claude-Bernard University in Lyon. “Hence absenteeism, hence depression,” adds Marie-Hélène Brousse. “Especially if something, in the execution of our task, contradicts a requirement deeply rooted in our education,” such as being forced, to meet deadlines, not to be too demanding about quality, when one has been raised in the valorization of work well done.
Taking a step back
“Even today, two conceptions of work clash,” summarizes Alain de Botton. “Schematically, the one inherited from the working class, for whom working is only a means (to feed their family, to afford free time), and the one inherited from the middle classes, who see it as an end in itself, a condition indispensable to happiness. In times of crisis, the first vision tends to prevail, one rejoices in having a job, whatever it may be.” A pragmatism that does not prohibit wanting to improve one's professional situation, without waiting for it to completely fulfill.
“First step: take a step back to be able to think,” recommends Nathalie Bouclier, a business coach. A few days off can help break the rhythm and begin to identify the difficulties: what are our needs (for structure, team, creativity) and our main frustrations (lack of freedom, recognition)? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the position we hold (responsibilities, salary, quality of life…)? “Ask yourself a simple question,” suggests the coach: “If you had to leave everything tomorrow, what would you miss the most?” In the negative, some things become obvious: colleagues, the place…
Sometimes, it will be enough to modify a few parameters (move your office, work from home one day a week…). But often, “we realize that we have always determined ourselves according to external pressures, not our needs.” Therefore, it is this feeling of sovereignty that we must strive to restore, “by allowing ourselves to formulate our desires, even the wildest ones, so as to revive energy,” encourages Nathalie Bouclier. A skills assessment can prove useful to transform dreams into realistic objectives.
Seeking happiness elsewhere
“What weighs most heavily is not the objective conditions in which we work, but the way we look at our activity,” points out Alain de Botton. “When suffering sets in, detachment work is essential.” If necessary, one will seek in therapy “what, in our history, leads us to accept or reject a job on which others have a very different view than ours,” advises Marie-Hélène Brousse. Finding out what family injunctions, what fragilities in self-esteem have guided our path can help us to make the situation evolve.
“Putting work back in its rightful place is vital,” certifies Marie-Hélène Brousse. “We must accept the fact that the ideal job does not exist, that professional life is not everything, and that we cannot have everything at the same time.” What is lacking in our work can and should be cultivated elsewhere. Carole, 46, an educational advisor, joined a choir: “Since I've been singing, my professional difficulties have taken on acceptable proportions, they no longer overwhelm me so much…” Alain de Botton says he is “very marked by this precept of Saint Augustine who says that judging a man by his social position is a fault. We must remember that we were valuable individuals before we started working and that we will still be so long after we have stopped doing so.”
Psychologies.com
Posted online on September 4, 2012.
