A problem with definitions: Happiness

I was always given free range when it came to deciding the direction I wanted to take when it came to my career. I remember being younger and wanting to heal people with plants. By high school graduation, my career path shifted and instead of clipping plants to make poultices and tinctures, I was to become the owner of a landscaping company. My first year of university was spent hopping from biology class to etymology and social sciences. Lost, I asked my parents for advice. Just like every other, my parents insisted on me becoming a doctor, or a lawyer or a business person just like them. Never was I pressured but I felt as if those were the only other paths out there. 

I had given the sciences a shot, and missed the target. Social sciences weren't my forte either. My next step was to take the plunge in to business. I took marketing and finance. I loved marketing but numbers weren't my friend. At the end of that semester, I continued on in to a business management program.
I was "blessed" by a solid job offer the day I graduated and Boy, was I excited. That year, I relocated 4 hours away and started this "perfect" job of mine. 

I should warn you that things move quickly in my life. 9 weeks into my first, career-focused job, I was let go because of a very high score on the incompatibility index with my soon to be supervisor.

The moment my boss told me that "we won't be a good fit", I was overcome by an incredible feeling of joy that i couldn't explain. I stared back at this woman who, for the previous nine weeks, I was ready to do anything to impress. I sat there, trying to mask the grin taking over my face, by pretending to read the termination letter she handed me. Before embarrassing myself by taking off skipping and jumping, I thanked her for the opportunity and wished her all the best.

That night, I broke my lease and packed everything I could in my still-new SUV I had just bought to get me to and from this job I thought I would still have. Even with the finance and insurance payments on my mind and no employment to fund them, the warmth and inexplicable happiness still hung around.

Morning came and I hopped in the overloaded car and headed south with no destination in mind.

I drove for 2 days until a call came in for a 2 month marketing gig that payed an unbelievable amount and included travel across Canada. How could I say no? I crossed half a dozen states in the following six days. Before I knew it, the feeling faded and I arrived in BC. I had to wait two weeks until the start date of the marketing program. In that time, I took a few oil field courses and applied to a few jobs so that I had something to fall back on after the project. Two days before setting off to Toronto for the marketing job, I got a call from an oil field company that was offering a larger contract. I accepted, turned down the other (they had yet to send me a contract) and found myself in Northern Alberta, 2 hours north of one of the northernmost cities.

Poor management, unpaid wages, and the contract getting cut short pushed me to head back south and find a new job. One hundred and seventy-eight applications later, I found myself relocating to Edmonton, AB to work as a millwright, a long stretch from my business-oriented education. Nevertheless, I gave it a fair shot and now find myself in a sort of a pickle.

My parents have always been supportive and wanted me to succeed. But over the last year or two, Iève begun questioning what success really is or means. My findings are, well... mixed. For some, money, executive job title, recognition, reputation have been the single description. Countless new-age or at the very least, contemporary thinkers have narrowed it down to happiness. HAPPINESS (or as the Québecois would say: A-PEENIS), is a fascinating and very individual concept. 

I bring this up because a promotion, from my days of getting home, my skin smelling of diesel exhaust and hands stained with oil, could likely come to an end. I would me moving out of the field and in to an office, with my 84 hours a week being cut down to a modest 40 without much of a pay cut. Although this, for many, would be an exciting opportunity which would give them back the personal time they've been missing out on for the last few months, for me, is discomforting. In fact, every inch of my body cringes at the very thought of accepting the offer. Logically, it is a fantastic opportunity. Good pay, good hours, good experience, yet my heart and stomach feel like they're being crushed in a vice.

I feel compelled to jump. To run away. To drop the reputation I have built for myself here and to forego the potential raise and title that may be handed to me. I want to get in to my truck once again, and head South. Even with my current financial obligations, the fuzzy feeling I had the day I left my first career job is creeping back. Is that happiness? If so, what does it mean? Is this not the time and place for a career? Is there something more pressing than making money right now? The more I write, the clearer it gets. I don't want to do this. Not now. I need to go. Every day here, sitting, waiting, working, stuck, is a struggle.

Maybe this "happiness" thing is more than anybody has previously defined. Money, title and praise? maybe for some. What if it was something a little more divine? I mean it in the unworldly sense; as in something that is not quantifiable and only emotionally qualifiable. Imagine a puppeteer pulling the strings on his marionette. Now imaging you are that puppet. Before the show, you walk around the set, going about your business, free to roam as far as the strings will let you. The show begins. The strings tighten up. You've built up a rhythm. You feel the need to continue what you were doing before the lights came up, but the tension on the strings is steering you in a different direction. Sure you can resist it, stretching out the strings as you go. The resistance weighs heavily on you and the discomfort grows. You have a decision to make. Relax, let the strings take you to where the story leads, or continue working, with the elasticity of the strings decreasing with every move until they finally snap. What happens then? I'm terrified to find out.