In one of my favorite pieces published in Pipe Dream, I wrote about the difficulty in balancing success with happiness, and what success means for the individual.

“But why does everything we do have to be for the sake of getting a job? Can we not learn for the pure love of learning anymore? Have we become so blindsided by corporate America that studying the works of Shakespeare, Hemingway and Twain are no longer important? And have we become so caught up in the need for wealth and empowerment that those who have a passion for history should change their area of study because that track will not land them a job behind a large desk in a private office overlooking Manhattan?

Today, success is consistently defined by money, power and where we stand in the socioeconomic hierarchy that charts America.

But what if we defined success by our happiness? What if instead of basing our human contribution to this world on the number of zeros on our paycheck, we made sure we felt happy, fulfilled and proud at the end of each and every workday?”

Read the entire piece here