Ikigai

Happiness is extremely subjective, and it really does depend on the person. Some might love like a really boring government desk job where you're in an air-conditioned room and you barely do any work all day, whereas other people would absolutely hate that. That would be their literal definition of hell. They want to be outside working with their hands doing something active. So, when it comes to choosing a career, of course you don't want to go with just the one that makes the most money. There are a lot of other factors to consider. And I've talked about this before, but I think the best way to think about this is the Japanese concept of Ikigai. Ikigai basically means it's your reason for being. And what it basically is is for different areas that are very important. So, you want to find a good balance between what you love, what you're good at, what the world needs, and also what you can be paid for. If you can nail all four of those things, then you've got your personal Ikigai. So, just to use a really quick example, let's say your passion is painting. You love painting, you're very good at painting, you could argue that the world needs painting. I mean, everybody loves staring at beautiful paintings. I said painting a lot of times in that sentence.

Thank God you noticed.

But there's a good chance that it won't fall under the category of what you can be paid for. So maybe instead of painting, you could consider doing something like graphic design, where you might have a better chance of making a good amount of money with that. And it kind of fits all of those other ones as well. Or if you really want to do painting, you're probably not going to be able to find a job, but you can get a little bit creative with it. You can get a little bit entrepreneurial, maybe start a YouTube channel, and then you can find success.