The Happiness Project

I missed the boat on New Year's Resolutions this year. Normally, it's quite a production: I sit down and spend several hours of navel-gazing, trying to figure out what I learned over the past year and what I would like to change for the upcoming year. This year, I spent the holiday season traveling, and never had the opportunity for my annual journal entry.

Fast-forward two months, and I found myself at my local bookstore, searching for The Happiness Project. I had heard about the book courtesy of a few legal blogs: it's authored by a former lawyer, who left her law firm to become a writer. It was a little embarrassing to find myself in the Self-Help section, so I bought the book to read from the luxury of my couch.

And, in a way, it made me think of the 2011 resolutions that never happened. It might seem indulgent -- who spends a year devoted to the pursuit of happiness? -- but the author's journey made me think about my own, and what I can change to make myself, well, happier. It's also an amalgam of research studies; although, like Gladwell in Blink, she cherry-picks research studies that support her hypotheses.

One of the parts that resonated most, though, was when offered the following anecdote:

"Because work is so crucial to happiness, another person's happiness project might well focus on choosing the right work. I, however, had already been through a major happiness quest career shift. I'd started out in law, and I'd had a great experience. But when my clerkship with Justice O'Connor drew to a close, I couldn't figure out what job I wanted next.

During this time, I visited the apartment of a friend who was in graduate school studying education, and I noticed several thick textbooks lying around her living room.

"Is this what they make you read for your program?" I asked, idly flipping through the dense, dull pages.

"Yes," she said, "but that's what I read in my spare time, anyhow."

For some reason, that casual answer shocked me to attention. What did I do in my spare time? I asked myself. As much as I liked clerking, I never spent one second more on legal subjects than I had to."

She later continues:

"My ambition, however, was also a factor in leaving the law. I'd become convinced that passion was a critical factor in professional success. People who love their work bring an intensity and enthusiasm that's impossible to match through sheer diligence. I could see that in my co-clerks at the Supreme Court: they read law journals for fun, they talked about cases during their lunch hours, they felt energized by their efforts. I didn't.

Enthusiasm is more important to master than innate ability, it turns out, because the single most important element in developing an expertise is your willingness to practice. Therefore, career experts argue, you're better off pursuing a profession that come easily and that you love, because that's where you'll be more eager to practice and thereby earn a competitive advantage."

It makes sense -- which then leads to the next question: How do you discover your passion?