Happy Working

It doesn’t need great teachers to realize, every one is seeking happiness, if not satisfaction in every act one does. Isn’t it.

Haven’t you listened to the Radios shout loud on Mondays “Monday blues”, Cartoons of “Dragging self to work” on Mondays? They always make me laugh out loud. Because, without essence of Mango, a drink doesn’t taste Mango. So is work. Work is demotivating, if it doesn’t carry the essence, the happiness string in it.  But does work have happiness? Work may be challenging, monotonous, redundant, hard… Never heard, happy! Am I crazy here! People have long assumed periodical increments are happiness givers, but work in itself is never happiness giver! Isn’t it?

I often tell people there are three things that every one of us must seek first before we aspire for happiness, otherwise, it is an endless quest to quench the thirst in desert.  Be it work, home.

Solve human problems, for yourself and for others, and your “happiness is guaranteed and sustainable”

(Picked from my larger saying: Solve human problems, for self or for others, happiness is guaranteed and sustainable. Create them, unhappiness is engraved permanently!)

Skills:  A skill-less human being may be sitting mid of a gold mine, yet he will buy alcohol and drugs to fulfill his thirst, but doesn’t attempt to put the Gold to right use, for himself and others. Skills solve problems, for ourselves and for others. When we solve a problem, it brings a moment, or a period of “feeling of accomplishment”, which are moments of joy to cherish.

Skills both at home and at work, make you  solve small problems like changing a fused bulb at home, to making your own shoe rack or even bigger things.

When it comes to profession, we must clearly understand that, we are hired to “solve problems”. It is an opportunity for us not only to “earn”, but also get a feeling of “accomplishment”.  Most employees idea of job is work-earn. No it is actually “solve a problem for the employer, and earn for the effort”, and it has a very intangible thread of mind “feel elated by solving the problem fantastically well”.

Remember, “If there is no problem, there is no job”

Then why are we demotivated in life? Because we only look at work as “hard work”, and it is very hard to work! Only if you look at work a finest thread to your ever longing emotion called happiness and accomplishment, you will see a new light.

New problems are thrown at us each day, or it may be redundant problem. For us as a “Knowledge Seeker” is to look at both of them with awe, because both are opportunities to invoke our creative side of it.

New problems are new ingredients waiting for a recipe. Redundant problems are old ingredients waiting for a new recipe. The only question is, can you create a recipe and make a dish out of it?

That needs skills, needless to say, technical, writing, verbal, network. And to develop them, one needs time.

I often tell my audience one statement.

You will intellectually and physically be the outcome of where you invested your time.

Organization:  Our houses are limited in area, so we arrange where the kitchen, the bed and the bath should be. Think if we haven’t drawn lines where they should be, but use the house, as we like. That house will be a mess, from the day we occupy it, and becomes non-livable in a week!

Life is like that too. It needs organization. The trick with life is that, it doesn’t “show you vivid”, or “throw you out”, but makes every opportunity that you can make use of, slip through your fingers, in a mean way. You came with limited time in life, and very limited time into profession. Now unless you de-mark your time, you just cannot catch hold of the string of happiness and accomplishment I mentioned above. The string is subtle and is not always about recognition, promotions, rewards, or increments, it is about your inner self, your heart. Sometimes externally people recognize you, and sometimes you are on your own, like a undercover cop. Nobody knows about you, but still you are held to that string, because you know it is your path.

When I was passing out from my University, the then DRDO director was a chief guest to our Farewell function. When we thanked for his visit in his busy schedule, in his speech, he quoted,

“A busy man always finds time for anything constructive. A lazy man is always busy”

It created a lasting impression on me. It essentially meant, be organized, otherwise you will not have time for anything.

Commitment: Zig Ziglar, in his speeches always says “Motivation is like bathe, and so we need it every day”. He was a greatest salesman turned Moivational Speaker of his time. It might be true in Sales and Marketing where the challenge is to project a problem into a human mind and solve it for them, and so deal with with human emotion, agreement, their psychological condition, and sometimes problem may not be there at all tomorrow, which we thought it is there today. So they need a motivation to hold on to all reigns of the other human, go in the direction they want.

But in Software, Problem is proudly standing there, unwavering, looking at you eye-to-eye. Are you willing to slice it into two with your solution is the only question. Sometimes, your sword may not be sharp enough to cut it, or new problems may stand up to support the one you are trying to cut. Do you have the endurance to go all the way to the end of it? or you are demotivated if it doesn’t come down to it’s knees, with your effortless kiss? Do we need motivation to solve a problem, when we are designated problem solvers? Of course it makes sense, to motivate a beautician to solve a civil engineering problem, because there is nobody else even that capable, but not when a Civil Engineer himself is present. Isn’t it. Or are we beauticians in a Civil engineering project or Civil Engineers working in a boutique?

Commitment is assertion to ourselves, no matter what, we will walk till the end of it, and won’t leave it half cut, or show our back to the problem.

Conlcusion

If we have Organization, Commitment and Skill, then work-life balance comes by itself, we don’t have to run after it. We must understand, when we start loving work, work becomes life. Of course there are family, there are relationships, and they demand time. But we once we are organized, we know the groove to place everything that we have at hand. Don’t we? Sometimes we may be overwhelmed, but still we know what is important and unimportant.

Now we know about the string of happiness at work. Hold on to it, you will not regret, any profession that you are in!