WORK HARD
D
o you think you’d be
happier if you scored
the winning lottery
ticket? Ran away to
Mexico? Were swept
off your feet by prince/princess
charming?
Nope.
Turns out it’s not money,
escape or even love that will
make you happy.
The good news is that the
formula for happiness is easy.
The bad news is, it’s hard work.
“To be happy you basically
have to do what you’re good
at and you have to work hard
at it. That’s it,” says Patrick Finn,
associate professor in the School
of Creative and Performing Arts
at the University of Calgary.
“Happiness is deep and con-
nected to meaning and effort.
It has to be meaningful and
there has to be effort.”
The trick, says Finn, who
has lectured on the topic of
happiness, is to find an area
you’re really drawn to — some-
thing that “makes your heart
sing” — as opposed to some-
thing you think you should
do. “What often happens is we
get the idea that work should
be terrible and a struggle and
horrible, so you should just get
used to that. Instead, it’s about
working to feel good about
what you’re doing,” says Finn.
Hundreds, maybe hundreds
of thousands of positive psy-
chology books chart the way
to happiness through positive
thinking and though that’s a
nice way to while away the af-
ternoon, to be really happy youAvenueCalgary.com 29have to find your “way of being
in the world” and contribute
from there, says Finn.
“The idea is you should work
so hard at it that your muscles
are sore from it, but not so sore
that you can’t get up and do it
again tomorrow.”
Wait, you say, I don’t want to
work, I want to chuck every-
thing and move to the beach.
That won’t do it, says Finn. Hap-
piness isn’t about abandoning
things it’s about “finding your
place and serving from there.”
As for hoping to win millions in
the lottery ... “Quite famously,
when we look at the stats, win-
ning the lottery has a negative
impact on happiness,” says Finn.
So, forget buying those lot-
tery tickets, roll up your sleeves
and get to work on being happy.
—J.A.