Unhappiness at Work Starts With 3 Simple Misconceptions

Unearthing the truth and shifting your mindset

Photo by Doğukan Şahin on Unsplash

I wrote an article once about a quote that changed my thinking. That quote was this:

“A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke” ― Vincent Van Gogh

We see wisps of smoke everywhere we go; a book, a perfectly curated documentary, a podcast that makes your ears tingle. The trouble is, those perfect bits of content get dramatically misunderstood.

The unhappiness at work isn’t surprising

“A global poll conducted by Gallup has uncovered that out of the world’s one billion full-time workers, only 15% of people are engaged at work. That means that an astronomical 85% of people are unhappy in their jobs.”

Mix that with the sheer volume of time we spend at work, 90,000 hours over a lifetime according to one article, then we have a recipe for disaster. But it’s a disaster we bring on ourselves.

In 1985, Psychologist Hal Richard Arkes and Catherine Blumer published a paper that shed light on a feeling of irrationality that we all have.