So You're Unhappy....

I was inspired by a conversation with my wife last night to write a response to the popular current post, "Why Generation Y Yuppies are Unhappy."  If you haven't read that original post, go read it now and then come back.

There's a lot in this author's writing that is really true, and that's why it's got over 750K social networking hits right now.  It really hits a chord with a lot of my generation, us millennials as I like to call us.  There's no doubt that we've been told that "You can do anything you set your mind to," which has some nugget of truth in it.  There's no doubt that we've been told that "You're special," which also has a nugget of truth in it.  The truth is, we have been handed every imaginable opportunity, including wealth, education, the Internet, English, lots of free time, and more.  We want to change the world, and there's little doubt that we could if we wanted to.

Where I shrink back from this inspiring article, however, is right at the outset.  I have a hard time defining happiness as reality minus expectations.  The author accepts this as true and bases the rest of his article on it.  We have a problem as a generation if this is how we will define happiness.  How often will reality actually meet up with our expectations?  You might say that I lived this article my first couple years out of college.  Maybe it was doing what appeared to be menial tasks at work, or maybe it was only clearing $1000 per month on a full-time job with college degree, but somewhere in there I heard the message that I wasn't good enough, or qualified enough, for valuable work.  I fell into a year and a half of depression that I needed professional counseling to recover from.  My reality was definitely nowhere near my expectations, and it did hurt.  I was unhappy.

But I learned a few things.  One, that my happiness should have a lot less to do with expectations like this author is suggesting.  I now believe that my happiness should have a lot more to do with enjoying and making the most of each moment that comes my way, and that I should be making a lot fewer expectations.  Life will rarely live up to our expectations if we allow our expectations to run out of control.  Once Lucy books the plane tickets for a vacation, she will spend the next two months dreaming about how wonderful it will be.  No vacation can live up to two months' worth of dreaming.  The author is right that many people base their happiness on this equation, reality minus expectations, but offers no way out of this trap.  That's not an equation that will ever result in real happiness, only temporary excitement whenever we are surprised.

Two, I learned to take a long-term perspective on my life.  I wanted to change the world now, but I realized I couldn't.  Now I still want to change the world, but I have no misconceptions about doing that before I'm in my fifties.  I'm 28 years old, which in the career world is very young.  I'm just starting out.  It's a rare person who changes the world in their 20s or 30s, and it seems like most of them end up like shooting stars who don't last long.  Our generation's danger is that we will achieve greatness in our 20s or 30s, but lack the character to hold on to it and use it for the right things.  Jim Collins famously wrote about the enduring greatness of a Level Five leader in his book Good to Great.  Few reach it, but his hard-to-notice caveat is on the next page: to truly achieve it, you must have mastered each of the four levels below it.  Nobody reads the book and shortly becomes a Level Five leader - it takes a career to get there.

In short, there is a great deal that I agree with in Wait But Why's post about unhappiness.  Yet I think by the end of his post, his three recommendations are a bit shallow.  He fails to resolve one of the major challenges facing Lucy - she can't decide what to do.  I have plenty of friends in dead-end jobs, or no jobs, partly because they just can't decide what their "truest calling" of their heart is, to use Wait But Why's lingo.  His three suggestions are definitely valuable, but more helpful would have been these:

1. Stop basing your happiness on reality vs. expectations.  Happiness is a choice, an emotion that you can decide each morning to put on.  Don't worry so much about the future, or the past, but focus on the present.  How can you make the most of your right now?  And stop forming so many expectations about others, yourself, and the future.  It's a sure ticket to a letdown.
2. Take a long-term perspective.  Not to contradict the last point, but think about how you can use your right now to build your future.  Think about your résumé, and about how your experiences and education can set you up for enduring greatness and a legacy later in life.  Plan to change the world...when you have the foundation of twenty years' worth of career, continuing education, and life's wisdom under you.  And be sure not to miss the wealth of many mentors along the way.
3. Don't be afraid to make a choice.  There are a world of opportunities out there, but for most of the situations that you will face, doing something is better than doing nothing.  You will frequently find choices that seem challenging, but underneath are really choices between multiple good options.  You can find value in any circumstance, so stick your neck out there and make a decision, then make the best of it.  Don't look back, hesitate, or wish you had made a different choice.