What do we actually want?

Marie and I had a long discussion last night about our plans for the future, the kids and our own careers.

Needless to say, there are rather a few factors to take into consideration.

• Where should we live?
• How many days a week should we work?
• What job or career path should we do?
• How do we balance work and home educating our children?
• Do we want to try flexi-schooling?
• If so, where can we find a school that will offer this?
• Do we stay in the UK or move abroad?
• Are we barking up the wrong tree entirely and have we gone completely mad?

We worked our way through the myriad questions, doing our best either to answer them and make at least a vague plan, or to think about how we might figure out an answer in the future.

One very pervasive issue that continually arose however, was working out what we actually want.

Sounds simple enough, right?

But it isn't that simple at all.

We realised that we have absolutely no idea what we want, because we've spent our whole lives working towards a career that we assumed was the right thing to do, and never actually stopped to think about our own desires or what it was that made us happy in life.

At the ripe old age of thirteen, I was informed that I might make a good doctor and that I should consider medicine as a career pathway. Then, with no experience of work, the real world, or anything other than school, I applied and committed to a six year medicine course at the age of seventeen.

I merrily worked my way through, ticking off the exams and requirements, and racking up thousands of pounds in debt as I went, not questioning whether this was the right thing to do, and certainly not stopping to consider if it was actually what I wanted.

Then I qualified, started working as a doctor and began my postgraduate anaesthetics training.

Fortunately, I absolutely love it

I couldn't imagine doing anything else for a job. But it's not quite that simple.

I don't know what to do in my free time, because all I have ever done is work, and exercise. I've always had something academic to strive for, some exam to revise for, or some target to achieve, and as a result, I never spent time just doing things that I enjoy.

I have no idea how I want to balance the job with family life, or where I want to work, or what I see myself doing in ten years time, because I've never stopped to think about it. I've always just had the next step or the next exam or the next interview to work towards, and as such I've remained on this treadmill for a long time, not knowing where it ends or if that's where I want to be.

It's scary but this is what the system does to you, particularly if you're a gifted or high learning potential child. You are told by grown ups from a young age all the things you should be doing:

• Studying
• Getting work experience
• Exams
• Grades
• Tests
• Interviews and courses
• Becoming a 'well-rounded' person

All with the aim of what?

Of 'getting a good job'.

Why? To earn money.

Why? To live, sustain yourself and your family, buy a house, and... to be happy?

What is success?

I've been listening to the 'Art of Manliness' podcast this week, which I thoroughly recommend.

In particular I enjoyed episode #756 - "How the desire for status explains (pretty much) everything".

In this episode, it is beautifully explained how deeply entrenched our social status is within our own mind, and how our survival has depended on it for many thousands of years. It is present in everything we do, from our careers to our partners, our sports to our clothes - everything carries some form of status or rank, and our brains crave it.

Sometimes it's harmless - congrats you beat me at ping pong! - and at other times it is devastating - many people have taken their own life or those of others after losing status in society, or facing an episode of deep humiliation.

But however it manifests, status is always there, and it is particulary insidious when it comes to choosing how you earn your way through life. Consider the following three statements, and imagine them stated to you at a dinner party by the person across the table.

1 - "I'm a neurosurgeon."

2 - "I'm the CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation"

3 - "I make cute little bracelets using beautiful shells I've found while travelling, and sell them online through my website and social media channels"

Which of the above would you consider to be successful?

I'm fairly certain that your instinct would be to say that first two would beat the bracelet-maker in a competition of 'who has made it in life', right?

They're in positions of considerable power and responsibility, and undoubtedly must have worked exceptionally hard to get to where they are, and are almost certainly earning substantial amounts of money as a result.

Few people would argue that they aren't successful.

What if I asked you which of the three is happiest?

Now your answer is probably different. Even if we aren't neurosurgeons ourselves, we know that the job entails enormous stress, strenuous working patterns and unpredictable hours. Equally, we can appreciate the weight of responsibility on the shoulders of a CEO, needing to make crucial decisions around the clock to keep the company running smoothly.

Are they happy?

Maybe, but they're more than likely spending a lot of their time at home doing work-related tasks such as emails, admin and phone calls. There has been many a CEO supposedly enjoying the fruits of their labour on an enourmous luxury yacht in the Mediterranean, only to find themselves holed up below deck on the phone to the office back home.

I personally know many very 'successful' people who are objectively miserable.

Now consider our friendly braceleteer.

Even from just one simple statement, you can already feel the innocent enthusiasm from the third response, and it's clear they enjoy what they do. They're also probably quite interesting to talk to!

I'd be willing to bet they're probably happier than the surgeon or the CEO, with far less long-term stress in their life. They spend their time doing something creative and enjoyable, which they then share with other people who are also enthusiatic about their passion. They clearly have time to travel, finding new and interesting components and ideas for new bracelet designs, and as a side-effect they're probably out meeting new people and having a wide variety of experiences that our office- and hospital-dwellers don't have time for.

Granted, the bracelet maker almost certainly does not bring in as much money as the other two, but it doesn't seem like they're all to bothered by that fact. They're happy.

So we have two people who are successful, and one who is happy. But then what is success if not achieving happiness in life?

"The meaning of life is simply enjoying the passage of time" - Jimmy Carr

This is where status becomes an issue.

We become so pathalogically fixated on status, achievement and how others percieve us, to the point where we will forgo our own happiness in order to prove our societal worth, both to ourselves and others.

Notice how the first two responders, our surgeon and businessman/woman, have defined themselves by who they are and what their title is. They're playing the classic status game, demonstrating their success by using a widely-accepted label that portrays to the listener just how important they are, and how hard they have worked to get there.

Meanwhile our bracelet-maker interestingly has chosen to define their way of earning money by explaining exactly what they do, and how they do it. There is no title, no particular social status associated with it, just a neat description of time spent doing something they love, and making a living in the process.

Yes of course, you need to cover your costs of living, pay for food and shelter, and to generally function in society, and traditionally to do this, you needed some form of employment if you didn't have a whole load of family money to rely on. However the reality is this is no longer the only way to earn a living, and actually, there are many far more lucrative ways to do so thanks to the ubiquitous and all-enveloping nature of the internet. As a result, the opportunities and possibilities for how you can set up your life are phenomenal.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with using a well-recognised title in casual conversation - I do it myself when I tell people I'm an anaesthetist - but when the title becomes the goal and 'success' is measured by 'who you are', rather than 'are you happy'? then I feel we start to lose sight of what is important in life.

My definition of success

For me, my own personal definition of success is to set my life up in such a way that as many minutes of the day as possible are spent doing things that achieve one of the following goals:

• Learning something knew
• Improving a skill that I enjoy performing
• Investing time with my children

How I achieve these three things is less important, and allows me to re-evaluate my choices in life and the way I work.

One can now earn a very healthy living by building and writing a popular website, producing beautiful pieces of artwork and selling it online to enthusiastic fans around the world, or filming educational course videos on a subject of particular fascination and allowing people to subscribe to watch them.

Then, having been paid to do your hobby, you can merrily spend your time travelling, playing, and doing whatever else you fancy.

Let's say you work intensively for three hours in the morning, or the evening depending on when you are at your most productive. Then you spend the rest of your day enjoying the passage of time by filling it with wholesome and rewarding activities that bring us joy in life.

No more waiting for the weekend, saving up for one holiday a year when you can finally just relax. Instead you have an entirely flexible, vibrant and enjoyable lifestyle that means you don't need a 'break from the grind', because there's no grind to begin with. You don't need a 'job' in its conventional sense anymore, but school and the system as a whole will try and tell you that you do.

I love my work, but it's not everything.

I know from my experiences so far that being in the operating theatre and the emergency department, working to keep people alive through their operations or transferring critically ill patients to hospital in the back of an ambulance, I can honestly say that I am happy when I am at work.

But do I want to do it all the time? Absolutely not. One of the reasons I love my job is that when my shift is over, I'm done for the day. I cannot take my work home with me, and my shifts are generally predictable and not overly strenous. The rest of my time is spent with my family, reading, exploring and learning. For me, success is finding the right balance that allows me to practice anaesthesia for a reasonable amount of my week, and do those other things for the rest of the time.

The conclusion

Most people want to live a 'successful' life, and each will have their own definition of what that represents. We just need to remember to stop and think every so often about what we actually want from life, and whether our current actions and behaviours are taking us down the right path towards that ultimate goal.

If, in thirty years time, my child tells me that they are a neurosurgeon or CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation, I will of course be immensely proud of their achievement and hard work to get to where they are.

But if they tell me that they are happy, then I'll be over the moon.