What Makes You Happiest?

In his article "The Way to Produce a Person," David Brooks relates the story of Jason Trigg, a Wall Street hedge fund manager who lives well below his means and donates the majority of his earnings to fighting malaria. Brooks urges caution to anyone thinking of doing the same, outlining three main concerns.
First, he takes issue with Trigg's seemingly large gap between daily conduct and core commitment. Second, he cautions against "inverting the natural order of affections," or valuing some abstract faraway good over being devoted to a particular community. Finally, he warns against turning yourself into a means rather than an end.

As our house sat down to discuss Brooks's article on Wednesday night, we seemed to agree that Brooks makes good points about following your passions. However, many of us didn't quite agree with his criticism of Trigg and believed Brooks could have used a better example to demonstrate his points. We considered the idea that perhaps Trigg is very passionate about his job on Wall Street. If Trigg is doing what he loves and spending his money in a way he believes is right and good, perhaps he is doing the best thing he can be doing.

Sam raised good points about rejecting the idea that some passions are "better" than others. He mentioned that thinking about a hierarchy of passions, talents, or issues is dangerous because we need a variety and diversity of passions in the world. If we get into the mindset that some paths to social change are better than others, we might end up doing something that we think is the "best" path to social change but doesn't really engage us - and then our helpfulness will be lost. But if we follow our passions, whatever they may be, we will be more productive and engaged, and we will do the "maximum good" that we can.

Britta asked a good question: do your job and your passion/vocation have to be the same? We seemed to agree that the ideal is to have a job that fulfills your passions, although we could think of various examples of people we know who have jobs that provide money but not fulfillment. Chris brought up the point that not everyone can afford to do what they love and what fulfills them; many people who are struggling to meet basic needs must take survival jobs without a second thought to what is personally fulfilling or engaging. We discussed the idea that perhaps vocation itself is a privilege - a privilege we are afforded by virtue of having our basic needs met.

Sam reminded us that although vocation may be a privilege, it's not bad or unimportant. We must recognize that we have the opportunity of trying to align of passion and our life's work. If we find that intersection, we may be able to do a lot of good. We watched a great video about what really drives us and learned that mastery, autonomy, and purpose are more important than profit:

We ended our discussion with a big question: what makes you happiest? Some of us could easily and quickly provide answers, while others of us struggled to pinpoint our absolute happiest moments. We realized that the things that make us the happiest might be unrelated to career: sitting around a bonfire in silence, reaching a point of absolute trust in a relationship, or realizing that you are indelibly marked by the influence of others in your life (and others in your life are influenced by you). However, it's worthwhile to keep these things in mind as we think about career and vocation, as they probably reveal a lot about the kinds of people we are and the work we ultimately want to do. So, readers of the LSC blog, what makes YOU happiest?