Oliver Segovia’s piece in HBR this morn­ing is very thought pro­vok­ing and, I think, very true for dad alive today.  It’s about feel­ing ful­filled and, thus, becom­ing hap­pier.  This used to be the basis and focus on a midlife cri­sis. It seems, how­ever, that the ter­ri­ble econ­omy and job prospects has cre­ated a twen­tysome­thing crisis.

It’s a crash between ide­al­ism and a desire to do what you love with the real­i­ties of being able to earn a liv­ing.  Life isn’t that sim­ple but that doesn’t mean you should sell your soul and live the rest of your life in quiet desperation/frustration.

When first read­ing the arti­cle, I thought it was sug­gest­ing just that (sell your soul). For­get about what you love and find some­thing that will get you hired and paid. The writ­ings of a type A, busi­ness school, I-have-no-life-but-work type who is scared to death or com­pletely obliv­i­ous to the rich­ness of life and our interconnectedness.

Thank­fully, the arti­cle is not argu­ing for that but, instead, for you to look beyond your ego­cen­tric views and see a world that has real and desperate needs.

“Hap­pi­ness comes from the inter­sec­tion of what you love, what you’re good at, and what the world needs. We’ve been told time and again to keep find­ing the first. Our schools helped devel­oped the sec­ond. It’s time we put more thought on the third.”

It’s a good read for any­one, whether you’re twen­tysome­thing and just start­ing out or in your mid­for­ties and deep in a cri­sis of self.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, January 14th, 2012 at 6:47 am and is filed under Being Dad. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.