Great thread. Interesting.
I teach at a university (MBAs) and I do a little writing as well. I love my job and feel very fortunate to have it. Been doing it since 1989 in the same place. I'm hoping to create an online course soon so that I can teach while at the beach once our kids are in college.
One of the things I enjoy teaching and writing about is "crafting a life" (so that's why I get interested in threads on health, happiness, well-being). The advice I give to the MBAs (and I use for me, our kids, and anyone who asks) is:
1. Live under your means so you'll never feel stuck in a job -- always have money in the bank so you can walk from a job if necessary
2. Find a job in which you feel "flow"
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi explains that some kinds of work provide us with an opportunity to feel ?flow,? also known as ?peak experience? or ?optimal experience.? We feel flow when we are fully immersed in a task that is important to us?whether it's teaching, gardening, writing, singing, playing in a band, photography, creating web sites, creating a new product, or reading to a child. Think about how kids (and some adults) feel "flow" when building sand castles at the beach. They get great pleasure out of doing it even though the result will be washed away within hours. Jobs and activities are more likely to help you feel flow if they have these characteristics:
1. the work feels meaningful and worthwhile to you.
2. the goals are clear
3. the goals are achievable
4. there are clear rules for accomplishing the work
5. the work provides regular feedback so you know how you're doing
6. you have the skills you need to do the work yet the work has some challenge
7. you're able to concentrate on your work withyout distraction for significant periods of time
8. the work enables you to rise above worries and self-consciousness (you're not worried about what your boss thinks or what your colleagues or the Jones's are doing, for example)
9. you feel like you have some control over how yo do your work
If you love your job, it probably has many/all of these characteristics. If you don't like your job, it probably doesn't. Also, I would think that it would be hard to like a job if you don't like your boss, your colleagues, or the customers.
The other thing I've read is that the most stressful jobs are those that are demanding but you don't have control over how you do your work. People tend to enjoy demanding jobs when they have control over how they do their work. According to a few decades of research, people who don't have a sense of control over their work tend to have more heart attacks.
I think people who relax on SoWal.com tend to live about 10 years longer than average...