Work is more fun than fun.
- Noel Coward
Contrary to what most of us believe, happiness does not simply happen to us. It's something that we make happen, and it results from our doing our best. Feeling fulfilled when we live up to our potentialities is what motivates differentiation and leads to evolution. The experience of happiness in action is enjoyment -- the exhilarating sensation of being fully alive. Seeking out pleasure is also a powerful source of motivation, but pleasure does not foster change; it is, rather, a conservative force, one that makes us want to satisfy existing needs, to achieve an equilibrium, comfort, and relaxation. There is nothing inherently wrong with seeking pleasure, but the person for whom it becomes the main reason for living is not going to grow beyond what genes have programmed him to desire.
Enjoyment, on the other hand, is not always pleasant, and it can be very stressful at times. A mountain climber, for example, may be close to freezing, utterly exhausted, and in danger of falling into a bottomless crevasse, yet he wouldn't want to be anywhere else. Sipping a piña colada under a palm tree at the edge of the turquoise ocean is idyllic, but it just doesn't compare to the exhilaration he feels on that windswept ridge. Chess players continue to play, despite the fact that at the end of a day's tournament they can barely stand up from the table, and are coping with an aching head and a bursting bladder. Dancers sacrifice their entire lives to the iron discipline of their art, giving up relationships, parenthood, and most of the other pleasures of life in order to excel in it. At the moment it is experienced, enjoyment can be both physically painful and mentally taxing; but because it involves a triumph over the forces of entropy and decay, it nourishes the spirit. Enjoyment is the foundation for memories that, in retrospect, enrich lives and give confidence for facing the future. In terms of the individual lifespan, then, the consequences of enjoyment are quite different from those derived from pleasure.
It is impossible to survive as a leader in business without enjoying what one does. The job would become too stressful, the hours too long, and the temptation to spend more and more time on diversions too strong.
- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning
