What initially comes to mind when you think of happiness and Habitat for Humanity? I’m guessing you picture a family moving into their new home, or maybe a smiling volunteer, hammering a nail on the job site. That is where my mind instantly goes, but what about the happiness of those behind the scenes?
Aristotle said, “Happiness is the ultimate end and purpose of human existence.” I am currently reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin (and I highly recommend it), and thinking about happiness as a personal pursuit. When Rubin began her Happiness Project, she received backlash from friends who considered her project selfish. She even questioned if this was a worthy goal, and fell back on our friend Aristotle for absolution. In our work, we often find that our goal is the happiness of others. Indeed, providing shelter to those in need is worthy work, but the everyday tasks involved in this work may find us sacrificing our personal happiness for the cause.
“We must, therefore, pursue the things that make for happiness, seeing that when happiness is present, we have everything; but when it is absent, we do everything to possess it.”
― Epicurus
― Epicurus
Building and maintaining our personal happiness will only improve the work we perform in this internship and beyond, and while there is a lot to be said for finding happiness by making others happy, we greatly benefit by looking beyond our work and performing a happiness check-up on the rest of our lives. I really encourage you to look at Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project website if you are interested in exploring this for yourself. Remarkably, her latest blog post is on healing professions and happiness!
Have a great weekend, everyone!
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