I'm Young and Driven — But My Only Ambition in Life is to be Happy

Graphic by Alexa Marie

Here’s my confession: if I landed a £30k job, I’d be ready to call it a day. All I want is a mortgage, a car and a few holidays abroad each year. It’s more than enough. Hasta la vista baby.

I’ve worked all sorts of jobs – potwasher, cleaner, warehouse worker – none of them particularly enjoyable nor breaking past minimum wage despite having a glossy university degree. As it stands, £30k is a salary that promises a comfortable standard of living, yet it feels dirty to not want more. 

Whilst I could spend my life chasing paychecks that grow fatter and positions that climb higher up the corporate ladder, I doubt it would benefit me. After being subjected to years of conditioning that a successful career means high-powered and high-paid, I want to reclaim success on my own terms. The only career I want is one forged in happiness.

It feels like a betrayal – even self-sabotage – to admit that all I want is to be happy. Happiness can’t be quantified like a salary. Its value stretches across a broad spectrum because it’s subjective and different for everyone. It would make for a poor school reunion to declare, in the presence of my peers who have undoubtedly carved out careers as doctors, solicitors, marketing executives and engineers, that I was simply happy. And at a time when the journalism industry is slowly changing, there are greater opportunities for women like me. Being brown isn’t as much of a barrier, though there are still many challenges ahead. To strive for less that is being offered is shameful. 

It’s probably worth mentioning that my desire to be ‘happy’ isn’t a furtive nod towards laziness or complacency. It isn’t a rejection of stress, conflict and disappointment either. As an early-career journalist, I won’t have the luxury of being choosy. I understand the value of hard work. I’m ready for the long - and sometimes unpaid - hours I will have to put in. 

I just don’t want to slog milestone after milestone or bend over backwards for little reward once I’m established. ‘Happy’ means sleeping solidly each night, waking up with a sense of purpose, having respectful colleagues and a workload that’s demanding but not overwhelming. It’s such a basic aspiration it’s almost pathetic. Is ‘happy’ even possible in a notoriously cutthroat industry? 

My career goals weren’t always aligned with my emotional wellbeing. Not too long ago I’d made a list of all the awards I wanted to achieve. I wanted to emulate my journalistic heroes and follow their trajectories, so I created an imagined persona that was so distanced from who I truly was. This persona was going to be tough-talking, fearless, cool. They would sacrifice everything to get ahead in their career. It didn’t matter what the cost was. 

Doggedly pursuing kudos is obviously an unhealthy mindset. I let that fantasy go pretty quickly, not only because it was ridiculous, it was unsustainable. Being driven by a desire to boost your ego rather than wanting to genuinely help people is one of the worst motivations you can have. The idea of sacrificing the quality of your life for the sake of a career is also deeply flawed, especially since I know what it’s like to feel trapped and miserable. 

My first ‘real’ job after graduating from university was a cushy nine-to-five. I was sure I was on the right path. It was weekends off, desk lunches, home by 6 pm. By all accounts, it should have been perfect. There was only one snag. I hated my job. 

And it wasn’t a few ‘bad day at work’ episodes, where everything could be laughed off or remedied with a hot bath. It wasn’t a personality quirk either. It was an unshakeable, gut-punching kind of hatred that I quickly fixated on. I would talk incessantly to my partner and my family about how much I fucking hated my job. 

It spiralled out of control until it inevitably affected my ability to work. My waking hours were dominated by black, exhausting anger that in time gave way to depression. My hatred was so consuming that it became palpable. I was very bad at hiding my emotions. I knew work wasn’t meant to be fun, but it seemed unnatural to hate something so passionately. The worst part was knowing that I was greater than the person I had transformed into. I could have been resilient, gentle, patient, gracious – and yet I chose anger. 

I’m conscious that for many people, leaving a job isn’t possible even if it’s the only way to protect their mental health. After having time to mull things over during lockdown, I vowed that I would never turn into that person again. In an increasingly hostile world, I’m determined that happiness within a career should never be the result of good fortune. 

Written by Dani Cole (she/her)

IG: @danithecole

Edited by Keyatta Brooks (she/her)

Graphic by Alexa Marie (IG: aleexamarie)