Editor’s note: This article was first published in July 2012. Both rankings were originally published in 2011 (Forbes in September and El País in November), and the happiness data from the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center is older still.
Does work bring happiness? Does work bring health? Or, at least, if we turn to Maslow’s pyramid, it gives us security and pays our bills. These ideas are highly debatable and would spark an interesting discussion… Why do some people work just to tick the boxes and earn a salary, while other employees are deeply committed to the company they work for and give it their best efforts?
Let’s get personal. We devote at least 8 hours of every day to work. We spend more than two thousand hours a year working at the company. If the job we have isn’t satisfying for us, that can be very hard and grim for the worker. Still, you can’t please everyone, and some occupations, or jobs, bring more happiness than others.
Want to know which ones? Forbes published a study carried out by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. In first place is the job of priest, and the list runs as follows:
- Priest
- Firefighter
- Physical therapist
- Writer
- Special education teacher
- Teacher
- Artist
- Psychologist
- Financial services sales agent
- Heavy equipment operator
Writer. It can usually be combined with another occupation that brings in more money than writing alone. Besides, writing doesn’t necessarily mean publishing, and when we do publish, the pay isn’t very high, unless you hit on the right book and achieve big sales.
Being a writer means living on the hope of passing on your stories and feelings to others. Perhaps that’s why it’s considered one of the happiest occupations of the moment: because someone comes up to the writer and says they identify with what they have written and published.
A few make a living from it. The others, the many, are content to put their dreams as writers on the market.
Physical therapist. It ranks third among the happiest jobs, and the reason given is what patients convey as they progress in their treatment thanks to the therapist’s effort.
This occupation brings together two key elements: an interest in health (the studies) and social skills, especially when those are rewarding and appreciated. Together, the two feed the personal pride of having solved other people’s problems.
Firefighter. The schedule, the physical strength and the activity are what make firefighting one of the happiest occupations. It suits active people who need a special, different schedule, and for whom sport is a necessity, both for health and as a hobby. All these ingredients add up to going home from work satisfied after a shift on duty.
Despite the survival instinct firefighters have, they say they are happy when they think about what would have happened “in that case” without their intervention.
Priest. Caring for lost souls is the happiest job. Giving yourself to people and leading a life devoted to others is considered the happiness of those who live for the sake of others. Priests insist that money doesn’t bring happiness, but devoting yourself to helping others does.
At the other end are the jobs that, according to this same study as reported by El País, we hate the most:
- Director of information technology
- Director of sales and marketing
- Product manager
- Web developer
- Technical specialist
- Electronics technician
- Law clerk
- Technical support analyst
- Machinist
- Marketing manager
Further reading
- The best human resources books
- Occupations with full employment
- The master’s degrees with the brightest future
Featured image: Amuzujoe, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
