A couple months back, I read a story about a man who says he gained happiness when he gave up doing what he loved and took a regular job. The man studied math in college and his first job was as a high school math teacher.

His first year as a teacher was amazing, but his second year is when the trouble started. He started noticing that dealing with the children’s personal situations and problems robbed him of the joy that teaching math brought. He became depressed and began to resent his job.  The man resigned a year later.  Eventually, he went back to school to take some additional classes in accounting, then took a job as  an accountant. The man said he found happiness by giving up a career he “loved” to take a “regular” job. He said he wrote the story because he often hears too many bloggers suggest that true happiness comes from an endless pursuit of doing what you love, a suggestion that causes them to overlook the fact that many people can find happiness by taking a regular job with less stress.  These people choose to put emphasis on areas of their lives they deem more important like children or family and look at work as just a paycheck they need to maintain a stable life.