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| Illustration: Uday Deb |
Politics, as the recent shenanigans in New Delhi reveal, is easily the richest profession in the world. There was a day when politics was described as service to the nation or the people. Now these idealistic non-governmental organisation types have gone to the microfinance industry to make their fortunes. The clearly unscrupulous have stuck to politics.
But money is really a by-product of their activities. The principal objective is power. Once, “national leaders” were revered; today they are abhorred.
Politicians have a lot in common with CEOs. Both need to be megalomaniacs. Both have to be ruthless. Both are probably successes in their careers but failures in life.
There is the old argument that money doesn’t mean everything, that the world is too much with us these days and we should go back to the villages and commune with nature. “That’s all very fine,” says Mumbai-based HR consultant D. Singh. “But even that needs money. Not everybody is born with a blank cheque from his parents.”
Assuming you need to work — and that is true for most of us — the trick is to find a career you are happy in. That’s not too difficult. The problem arises because your job changes as you go along. Take the case of an IT professional who starts off with coding. That’s what he likes doing. A few years later, his organisation expects him to graduate to the next level: perhaps a team leader or project manager. He hates it. But if he doesn’t take up the new responsibilities, he is labelled a non-performer.
In the meanwhile, his salary has been rising. So he is earning more than a fresh recruit for the same job. “In most IT firms, if you’re ranked amongst the bottom 5 per cent, you can expect to be shown the door very soon,” says Singh. “This is truer in India where there is a clear hierarchy of professions. A doctor is highly rated, an engineer slightly less so. Plumbers and electricians are at the other end of the spectrum.”
In the UK, a survey shows hairdressers are the happiest profession. There’s no chance of that happening here unless you happen to land a job at a five-star hotel.
According to Christopher Peterson, the author of A Primer in Positive Psychology, it’s good to be happy in your job because such people tend to live longer. But there seems to be a contradiction somewhere; politicians tend to live till a hoary old age.
Away from the workplace, there is lot of work going on regarding happiness. Bhutan has been the centre of research for some time since it introduced a gross happiness product which it considers a more relevant measure than gross domestic product.
Professor Ruut Veenhoven, who runs the World Database of Happiness at Erasmus University, Rotterdam, says the happiest country in the world is Denmark with 8.2 points on a 1-10 scale. (This was in 2008.) Following are Switzerland (8.1); Austria (8.0); Iceland (7.8); Finland (7.7); Australia (7.7); Sweden (7.7); Canada (7.6); Guatemala (7.6); and Luxembourg (7.6). Among the others are the US (7.4; 17th place), Great Britain (7.1; 22nd), France (6.5; 39th), China (6.3; 44th), India (6.3; 45th), and Japan (6.3; 46th).
What does it tell us? Singh doesn’t have an answer except to point out that there are better places to migrate to than the perennial favourites, the US and the UK. Happiness may be much to be desired but few actually go out looking for it.
The happiest careers
THE US
■ Clergy
■ Firefighters
■ Travel agents
■ Architects
■ Special education teachers
THE UK
■ Hairdressers
■ Clergy
■ Chefs / cooks
■ Beauticians
■ Plumbers
