Finding Joy in Being an Underachiever

How I found joy when I stopped looking for more

A while back a friend gave me a creativity notebook. The notebook included the tweet below.

Life is the process of achieving things you wanted to achieve and then discovering they didn’t make you any happier and so you just watch Netflix — Matt Haig

I can relate to that tweet completely, but, unfortunately, for a good portion of my achieving things, I didn’t have Netflix to get me through. I survived and even before Netflix TV was a big part of my life.

Mine has been a life of thinking that I would be happier if I could just achieve a certain thing.

Going to college was going to make me happier. I was still an awkward social outcast in college.

Graduating and getting a job was going to make me happier. My first job out of grad school was a contract job with no benefits and a terrible boss.

Getting a real job away from that boss was going to make me happier. I ended up back working in jail.

Getting out of jail was going to make me happier. It took 19 years, but I got out of jail. I was then in a weird, invisible position where no one respected me and I was still the jail guy.

Getting a transfer or a promotion to get an actual title was going to make me happier. What I got was a title that meant nothing and being invisible and less respected than I was when I was the jail guy.

I spent years working toward some mythical place that was going to make me happy. I was still not happy.

I wasn’t happy because my focus on being happy was too career focused. My career was never going to be the source of my happiness.

I was reaching for happiness where happiness was not to be found. I was never going to move up in my career if I stayed who I was and I refused to be someone else.

I wrote that summary a year before I left the terrible job. I then spent a year of, depending on who you ask, doing nothing or healing from a toxic environment.

I tried to achieve as a writer and it was pretty clear early on that it was not going to happen.

I’ve since found peace in being an underachiever.

I write, but I write for me and find joy in the process and the pocket change I earn.

I work as a substitute teacher where I have no desire to move up to a better job. I find joy in working with teens and knowing I am in control of my schedule.

I volunteer at a therapeutic riding facility. I did get “promoted” to a lead volunteer position, but sometimes wish I was still a regular volunteer. I find joy in working with the horses and knowing I am supporting good work. I’m not looking for anything more.

I, like many people, tried to find my happiness in work and achievement.

You can spend your entire life doing this only to look back and regret all of the time you poured into a career that took and never gave.

When you pour out and never receive, you end up empty.

I’m glad I got out of the achievement game while I still have time to find happiness and joy elsewhere.

I am an underachiever and I’ve never been happier.