Choose an interesting career over a fun career

There are two basic types of speeches from commencement speakers: One is to “Go find your purpose.” The other is “Find work you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” Scholars refer to two kinds of happiness as hedonic and eudaemonia. Hedonic is about feeling good; eudaemonia is about living a purpose-filled life.

But hedonic alone results in empty pleasure and eudaemonia by itself can become dry. In reality, we need a balance of enjoyable and meaningful. If you find something that genuinely interests you, it will lead to being intensely pleasurable.

A big mistake many people make in their careers is to treat work as a means to an end, be it money, power, or prestige.

When a career is just a means to an end, the payoff will be unsatisfying. With the right goals - earning your success and serving others - you can make the work i...