Doctors and lawyers who are significantly more affluent report much lower levels of job satisfaction. The least satisfied professions were roofers and waiters, people who work primarily for money because their jobs are seen as having fewer intrinsic rewards.

These survey results reaffirm Happiness Habit’s First Law of Happy Thought: Our Focus Determines Our Feelings

When we devote our time and energy to doing things we find meaningful and rewarding, we feel good. Devoting our lives to altruism and helping others is often the best, most reliable route to true happiness.

Clergy face many difficult stresses daily, dealing with death, demanding church members and dysfunctional subcultures. Their lives are certainly not easy or stress free. The noble calling of their profession, their dedication to goodness and helping others triumphs dramatically over all these disadvantages.

Roofers and waiters who report low job satisfaction can reposition their perspectives to emphasize the value and beauty in what they do.

Everyone can take pride in executing even simple, repetitive jobs extraordinarily well. Linking job satisfaction to the benefits your work provides, keeping a home dry or creating a beautiful dining experience can send your spirits soaring. You no longer work just for money but for the good you do for others.

Doctors and lawyers who adopt similar perspectives achieve far greater satisfaction from their work. When they just focus on their stresses and their problems, they are miserable. Redirecting their attention to the good they provide patients, clients and society changes the complexion of their work dramatically.

Professions characterized by chronically combative, competitive cultures value winning, power and superiority above all else. Even people who are highly successful in these cultures are rarely as happy or long lived as those who choose to devote their talents to altruism and helping others.

Goodness truly does bring its own wonderful rewards!

See HappinessHabit.com for more happiness insights.

Copyright 2007, Michele Moore. All Rights Reserved. Reprints.  Michele Moore is author of How To Live A Happy Life – 101 Ways To Be Happier.

UPDATE

CBS removed Gilbert’s second quote* from the CNBSnews.com website after we received his angry email.

Our comments had impact!

Katie Couric’s interview today with “Stumbling on Happiness” author Daniel Gilbert shares revealing insights into how psychologists view happiness.

Here are Dr. Gilbert’s closing comments:

“This interview has, of course, been the single happiest experience of my entire adult life,” says Gilbert.

“I’d have to say that I am especially happy when my 4 year old granddaughter and I spread the tinker toys out on the living room floor and build a geebenfloober. Neither of us has any idea what a geebenfloober is, but it’s really fun to say with a mouthful of pretzels.”

Conspicuously absent were any steps people can take to live happier, more fulfilling lives, like…

Be Guided By Goodness, Fuel Your Life With Fun, Your Aim Determines Your Achievements, Avoid All Unnecessary, Non-Productive Negativity and the Fault Finding Feel Goods, Focus On How You Want To Feel, Drive Discipline With Desire, Live According To Your Aspirations Not Your Inclinations, Touch People With A Positive Spirit, Live By Only The Highest And Best Values, Be Driven By Desire Not Duress, Love Propels Happiness.

Psychotherapists have major investments in treating disease. Growing happiness does not necessarily further their goals.

*Gilbert begins by saying, “in the land of plenty, plenty of people are unhappy and want to know why.”

He seems to view unhappiness as something that is wrong, as a disease, not as a difficulty that can be overcome by thinking and acting in new or different ways.

Don’t look to psychologists or psychotherapists for compelling insights about happiness.

Instead, seek out genuinely happy people. Study and acquire their values, beliefs and ideals and then become happy like them.

Gilbert comments, “You should do some homework before criticizing others as a means of promoting your book.” Hmmm, did we really criticize? Or did we just quote him fairly from the interview and state the facts? We were certainly kind and supportive on the CBS website.

You decide.

See HappinessHabit.com for more happiness insights.

Copyright 2007, Michele Moore. All Rights Reserved.  Reprints.

It’s a myth that Happiness comes with calm, complacent serenity. Happiness flows from action, achievement, accomplishment and activity.

Our happiest moments often come at our most exuberant, creative times. Most people feel extraordinarily happy when they are in their most creative state. Creativity comes with energy and excitement.

“In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed – but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and what did that produce – the cuckoo clock!”
~ Orson Wells, The Third Man, 1949.

Happiness springs from creativity, energy and excitement.

Happiness Habit: Skills & Strategies of Habitually Happy People
Copyright 2005, Michele Moore. All Rights Reserved. Reprints.