Is Happiness the Beginning or the End?
By Jamie Anderson
Happiness is considered so fundamental to the American way of life that it's listed as one of only three "unalienable rights" in the Declaration of Independence. The wording used 200+ years ago – "the pursuit of Happiness" – indicated that happiness was to be found only at the end of a chase. Even now, it's still widely believed that happiness is something you have to work hard for in order to earn.
But there's a big problem with that viewpoint: we the people are terrible at finding happiness. A 2013 Gallup poll found that only 30% of us are happy at work; fully 70% of Americans, according to Gallup, "are emotionally disconnected from their workplaces and less likely to be productive" (qtd. in Adams). As a general rule, we can't be happy in life if we aren't happy in work. It's where we spend most of our time, and it's a large part of who we are. So ouch.
How can we get happier at work? It's no secret that business journals and management courses have long been full of strategies for increasing productivity, which is supposed to lead to success and from there to raises and rejoicing all around. Why aren't these ideas getting the job done?
Well, it could be because we've had things backward all this time, and that contrary to what we (and the Founding Fathers) assume, happiness should not be our destination but instead our starting point. Shawn Achor is one researcher who thinks that's exactly the case. Achor began his career teaching a happiness course at Harvard and has since become a business consultant. His firm advertises a simple but lofty goal on its website: "to make you happier" (GoodThink).
Achor uses science to show that the formula of success leading to happiness needs to be reversed. As he writes in his best-selling book, "happiness and optimism actually fuel performance and achievement—giving us the competitive edge that I call the Happiness Advantage" (The Happiness Advantage 3-4). Watch his 2011 TED talk, "The Happy Secret to Better Work," for a rundown:
Click here to open in a new window.
This TED.com talk is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.
The short version of Achor's lecture is that our brains are not wired to find lasting happiness from success, because once we achieve a goal, we move the goalposts. If we lose five pounds, we decide we should lose ten. If we get a raise, we soon start thinking about needing another one. In contrast, our brains are designed to respond well to happiness. Happiness stimulates the brain to release a chemical called dopamine, which increases learning and creativity. According to Achor, a happy brain is 31% more productive than an unhappy one.
The good news about Achor's research is that it doesn't just apply to the optimists among us. We can all train ourselves to be happier, by following a five-part process of gratitude, journaling, exercise, meditation, and random acts of kindness. He claims that real world experience proves that just three weeks of practice yields lasting results. Happiness, he says in his TED talk, is not the end but the beginning:
It's not necessarily the reality that shapes us but the lens through which your brain views the world that shapes your reality. And if we can change the lens, not only can we change your happiness, we can change every single educational and business outcome at the same time.
Now there's a self-evident truth we can all appreciate.
Jamie Anderson
Jamie Anderson has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Ph.D. in Human Resource Studies from Cornell University. He founded Cloud Nine, a company specializing in creative solutions for happier workplaces, in 2002, and since then has helped many of Silicon Valley's most successful businesses establish fulfilling and productive corporate cultures. Jamie is a frequent guest on CNBC, PBS, and the Business News Network.
Works Cited
While this article uses MLA citation style, it is not formatted according to MLA guidelines for student papers, which require regular margins, headers, double-spacing, etc. For more help about how to use MLA or APA guidelines, review the Foundations.
Citation styles are updated over time to reflect changes in how information is created and communicated. The article above is reproduced as it was written in 2014, and its citation style is now out of date. Below, a corrected in-text citation and works cited page follow the current, MLA 9th edition citation style.
In-text citation
The essay concludes with a block quote. When a work without page numbers is quoted, MLA now asks for other ways of locating it within the source, such as a time stamp in a video:
Happiness, he says in his TED talk, is not the end but the beginning:
It’s not necessarily the reality that shapes us but the lens through which your brain views the world that shapes your reality. And if we can change the lens, not only can we change your happiness, we can change every single educational and business outcome at the same time. (6:05-6:19)
Works cited page
Works Cited
Achor, Shawn. The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology that Fuel Success and Performance at Work. Broadway Books, 2010.
---. “The Happy Secret to Better Work.” TED, May 2011, https://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work
Adams, Susan. “Unhappy Employees Outnumber Happy Ones By Two to One Worldwide.” Forbes, 10 Oct. 2013, https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/10/10/unhappy-employees-outnumber-happy-ones-by-two-to-one-worldwide/?sh=46d7af70362a
GoodThink. GoodThink Inc., 2014, https://goodthinkinc.com/. Accessed 1 July 2014.
Your College Major May Not Be As Important As You Think
By Zac Bissonnette
This article first appeared in "The Choice," a New York Times blog, on November 3, 2010.
Here's an excerpt from a letter that an indignant father sent to his son after hearing that he had opted for an impractical major:
I am appalled, even horrified, that you have adopted Classics as a major. As a matter of fact, I almost puked on my way home today. … I am a practical man, and for the life of me I cannot possibly understand why you should wish to speak Greek. With whom will you communicate in Greek? …
I suppose you will feel that you are distinguishing yourself from the herd by becoming a Classical snob. … I think you are rapidly becoming a jackass, and the sooner you get out of that filthy atmosphere, the better it will suit me.
The reaction of Ted Turner's father, who wrote that letter(1) to his son, years before he founded CNN, is pretty typical.
Many students encounter tremendous pressure from their parents to adopt "practical" majors, and I've talked to a handful of students whose parents flatly refused to provide for their educational expenses unless they majored in something career-oriented.
With less than half of recent college graduates(2) landing jobs that require a college degree, this concern is understandable. But it's misguided. In recent years, research into the importance of choice of major has led to a surprising conclusion: it's really not all that important.
To wit: A University of Texas at Austin professor, Daniel Hamermesh, researched career earnings data sorted by choice of major and concluded that:
Perceptions of the variations in economic success among graduates in different majors are exaggerated. Our results imply that given a student's ability, achievement and effort, his or her earnings do not vary all that greatly with the choice of undergraduate major.
A study conducted by PayScale Inc.(3) found that history majors who pursued careers in business ended up earning, on average, just as much as business majors.
Ramit Sethi, a blogger and the author of "I Will Teach You to Be Rich" is also a fan of "impractical majors." He studied in the Sciences, Technology, and Society(4) Program at Stanford.
"I never thought of my university education as technical training. If it was, why wouldn't I just go to ITT Tech?" he said in an e-mail, adding:
Where else will you get four years to intellectually challenge yourself and learn subjects in university-level depth? In fact, pair a 'weird' major with summer internships and interesting projects and you've got a leg up on the typical 3.5-G.P.A., by-the-book student. I majored in an obscure major — S.T.S. — and I use my background in social influence, persuasion and behavioral change every day of running my own company.
To be sure: if a student wants to be an engineer or an accountant, those are fine majors. But don't think that you are doomed to a life of poverty if you pick the wrong major. There are at least four great reasons to pick a liberal arts major:
Most people will graduate with higher G.P.A.'s if they study something they are passionate about. High G.P.A.'s help graduates land jobs, and there is a fairly strong correlation(5) between class rank and career earnings. Great grades also help with graduate school admissions, and the rigors of liberal arts often lead to better performance on the G.M.A.T. and L.S.A.T. than other majors.
One study(6) found that economics majors achieve the best scores of anyone on the G.M.A.T., meaning that students interested in M.B.A.'s are probably better pursuing an economics major than a finance major.
There is a disconnect between students' perceptions of what employers want and what employers actually want, according to a survey described in an article in Canadian HR Reporter(7), which reported: "Most employers cite communication skills as the most important skill for a candidate to possess, while generation Y (aged 18 to 35) believe employers are looking for experience, found the survey by Toronto's George Brown College."
If your goal is to develop written and verbal communications skills, a finance major may not be the best bet.
Transferability of skills. It's become a cliché that the best jobs of tomorrow don't even exist today. Such is life in a rapidly changing, technology-driven global economy. Remember all those television ads for training in VCR repair that suddenly stopped running a few years ago? That's the potential risk of a major that places job training ahead of mind development.
Most importantly, majoring in something that interests you is just the obvious thing to do. You'll have more fun, have a richer experience and be less likely to drop out if you are actually passionate about what you’re studying.
Now, here's my message for parents: Relax about your children's choice of major, and realize that their abilities, work ethic and passion will ultimately lead them to a fine destination.
Zac Bissonnette
Zac Bissonnette is a personal finance writer and 2011 graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The Washington Post dubbed Zac's first book, Debt-Free U, "the best and most troubling book ever about the college admissions process." His book has been featured in The BBC, The New York Times, The Huffington Post, USA Today, The Suze Orman Show, The Boston Globe, ABC News, and many others publications and news programs.
His second book, How to Be Richer, Smarter, and Better-Looking Than Your Parents, offers advice to his fellow 20-somethings on avoiding common financial mistakes and staying out of debt. Zac published two books by the time he was 23 years old and is currently the editor of Warman's Antiques & Collectibles.
References:
1) The Lost Tycoon, by Ken Auletta: http://www.kenauletta.com/2001_04_23_thelosttycoon.html
2) Recession's toll: Most recent college grads working low-skill jobs, by Tony Pugh: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/06/25/70788/recessions-toll-most-recent-college.html
3) Ivy Leaguers' Big Edge: Starting Pay, by Sarah E. Needleman: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/pf_article_105499.html
4) I Will Teach You to be Rich, by Ramit Sethi: http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/
5) Economic Scene; Children smart enough to get into elite schools may not need to bother, by Alan B. Krueger: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/27/business/economic-scene-children-smart-enough-get-into-elite-schools-may-not-need-bother.html
6) Econ Majors Score Well on the GMAT Too!, by Terry D. Monson and Paul A. Nelson: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=960088
7) Canadian HR Reporter: http://www.hrreporter.com/userlogin?article=8246-employers-and-gen-y-have-different-skills-expectations-survey
*Notes:
This article does not use MLA or APA citation style, but instead uses a citation style typical to newspapers, blogs, and popular magazines.
Not all publications use the same citation style. Citation styles are also updated over time to reflect changes in how information is created and communicated. The article above is reproduced as it was written in 2010. Below is an example of how the sources noted in the footnotes could be compiled into a reference list following the current, APA 7th edition citation style. (APA formatting is not used.)
References
Auletta, K. (2001, April 23). The lost tycoon. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/04/23/the-lost-tycoon
Employers and gen Y have different skills expectations: Survey. (2010, September 22). Canadian HRReporter. https://www.hrreporter.com/news/hr-news/employers-and-gen-y-have-different-skills-expectations-survey/313220
Krueger, A.B. (2000, April 27). Economic Scene; Children smart enough to get into elite schools may not need to bother. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/27/business/economic-scene-children-smart-enough-get-into-elite-schools-may-not-need-bother.html
Monson, T.D., & Nelson, P.A. (2006). Econ majors score well on the GMAT too! SSRN. https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.960088
Needleman, S.E. (2008, July 31). Ivy Leaguers' big edge: Starting pay. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121746658635199271
Pugh, T. (2009, June 26). Recession's toll: Most recent college grads working low-skill jobs. Idaho Statesman. https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/article40696587.html
Note that the e-mail from Ramit Sethi, which was quoted in the essay, is not included in the reference list. Personal communications that cannot be looked up by a reader are only cited in the text.
