The relationship between happiness and work is often overlooked especially as happiness is more frequently equated to family life or to love. However, the relationship between happiness and work bear out an important concern since an unhappy work-life affects our other relationships most especially the home. The key then is to keep a healthy, positive, and sustained relationship between happiness and work, and to do this, you don’t have to be (job-) rich.

What could be said as the most serious hindrance to happiness in the workplace is ‘discontent’. Most people always wait for the time they will be happy when actually they already are. If you’re not experiencing any on the following list then you might want to look closer into your inner contentment. The obvious obstacles to having a good relationship between happiness and work are: lack of job security, not having enough salary to pay debts, living payday after payday, no money to save, invest, or buy a house or lot, being passed-over for wage-increase or promotion, getting stuck in a dead-end job, lack of know-how about ‘technologies’ coming into your workplace, embarrassment about your job, frustration at seeing others get on better or get ahead faster, desiring to do better but unsure of what to do or how, and worrying about the future in general. The solution to these problems could only take a diligent choice and change physically. However if you still feel discontented when these physical problems are already out of the scenario, then that’s the problem. You might want to look into your goals to work against trying to succeed in the sense of priding for ‘a good show’ or ‘towards greedy objectives’, for ‘success’ is far simpler than all these, yet much more pleasing.

I’m sure you’ve heard about this maxim, “learn to do the smallest thing in the grandest manner…” This is a great summary when it comes to the concern about our keeping the relationship between happiness and work within reach. One may not catch a successful by-product out of his good efforts yet the thing is, as always, “performing your chosen job as well as you are able” – “win or lose”. And if you manage to win only a “perfect little world”, then remember that it is still a perfect one no matter how little.

In the end it might just be, “gaining more than what you earn”.

When I first started my career as a social worker I was a counselor in a residential treatment program. The treatment program was setting up new units for the children to complete to achieve the goals they needed to work on. Each counselor was assigned different areas to develop the units. One of the units that I was assigned was how to make friends. When I first saw this I thought that it would be very easy to develop. I had always had lots of friends is high school and college and so I thought it would be easy to teach a young teen how to make friends.

When I sat down to right the objective for the goal I found that this was very easy. The reason that people need and want friends is to have someone to share your problems with and also to have companionship and someone to share good times with. When I came to the part of writing the task on how to make friends I was stumped. It was hard to find a way to teach someone, especially an emotionally disturbed adolescent how to make friends. I had never stopped to think about how I did this. I realized that I had never consciously set out to make friends with anyone. My friendships had developed over time of seeing someone in classes and working on projects together and then going for coffee or drinks. I had never entered a class or work situation and thought about making a friendship with someone, the relationships evolved.

As I started to think about how the relationships formed and how to help others to follow steps to form friendships I realized that the main thing I do is to be myself. I smile at people and I ask them questions about themselves. I also listen to their answers and showed interest in their lives. I decided that the main thing I would have the children concentrate on in how to make friends is listening to others with genuine interest. This would be a challenge for many teens that tends to be quite self-centered.

Fortunately, most of the teen relationship issues that people talk about, I don’t have to report. I can give teen relationship advice even when the relationship is getting pretty serious. After all, I am not directly responsible to the parents. I am merely responsible to the state and the school board as well as the teens. When I give teenage relationship advice, I can talk fairly freely. I don’t have to always be a teacher. Nonetheless, kids go to me for teen relationships advice because they want to hear from an adult voice. I am not simply an older and wiser one of their peers.

Fortunately, most of the teens are aware of the position I am in when I am asked for teen relationship advice. You see, as a teacher, I have certain obligations that the quizzes that they take on line, their friends, and the advice columnist that they write to don’t. An online quiz about whether you should break up with your boyfriend doesn’t have to report potential abuse, for example. It doesn’t have to report drug use either. neither do the advice columns. Teachers, however, have to report practically everything. I can give teen relationship advice, but there are many details that I would rather not know. After all, I hate to have to report them.

My advice for anyone who is in a position where they have to give advice for teens relationships is to spend a lot of time listening. Often, the teens already know what is the right choice. It is simply that everything is so new to them, and it can be helpful for them to be able to air their concerns. More often than not, the best teen relationship advice is to tell them to do what they already know is right.