The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg interviewed coauthors Brooks and Winfrey, on campus at Klarman Hall. (Photo by Ethiopia Al-Mahdi)

The third pillar for building a happier life is meaningful work. Hundreds of studies have shown that job satisfaction and life satisfaction are positively related, and causal: liking your job causes you to be happier all around. Engaging in work with your whole heart is one of the best ways to enjoy your days, get satisfaction from your accomplishments, and see meaning in your efforts. Work, at its best, is “love made visible,” in the elegant words of the Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran.

That’s the good news. It’s also the bad news. When your work is drudgery, it is bereft of love, and can make life a task. There’s no joy in dragging yourself out of bed in the morning to go to a job you hate—where you feel helpless, bored, or unappreciated. Some jobs really are objectively miserable. And striving simply to squeeze by financially is stressful under the best of circumstances. But for most people, when they learn that getting happier starts within, they can make work less stressful, more joyful, and a source of personal growth.

It would be convenient if we could tell you exactly what the right job is to do that, and how to get it. But work that raises your happiness does not mean finding a specific job with a lot of prestige or income (although we all have to make enough money to get by). You can love or hate being a lawyer, an electrician, a homemaker, or a full-time volunteer. Researchers who have looked for clear relationships between job satisfaction and the actual type of job one holds have overwhelmingly struck out. In a 2018 survey, the “happiest jobs” had nothing in common: teaching assistant, quality-assurance analyst, net developer, and marketing specialist. The unhappiest jobs are similarly grab-baggy, and fairly unrelated to education and income: accountant, security guard, cashier, and supervisor.

The fanciest job can be a disappointment or a triumph, and an “ordinary” job with moderate pay can be delightful or terrible. The decision to stay home to raise your kids, if you can afford it, can be wonderful—or not. Retirement can raise your happiness or lower it.

To build a career that makes you happier means understanding yourself. It means being the boss of your own life, even if you aren’t technically the boss at work.