Happy on Purpose
how keeping painful secrets kept me from finding my calling
“What are you doing these days?” a friend asked me at a cocktail party several months ago.
“Oh, I’m, um, writing,” I replied, palms sweating. I felt like a five-year-old, intimidated by a grown-up asking me about myself. “I have a sort of, um, newsletter, blog thing that I send out every week.”
“That’s cool! What’s it about?”
“Oh, um, it’s sort of about, um, happiness,” I mumbled as I fervently searched my deer-in-headlights brain for a way to change the subject.
“What’s it called?” she innocently asked.
“Some Happy Scribbles,” I murmured apologetically, already anticipating her next question, “What did you say?” plus a frown and quizzical look that, deep in the throes of a bout of imposter syndrome, I interpreted as disapproving.
“The name of my newsletter is Some Happy Scribbles,” I repeated, mortified that something I felt so passionate about and was devoted to seemed to leave people confused and unimpressed.
**
Later, I’d puzzle over why I kept having the same squirmy reaction whenever I was asked about this newsletter.
It didn’t make sense: writing about happiness is the answer to my long-running search for meaningful, satisfying work, but for the past three years, talking about this newsletter to well-meaning friends and strangers made me simultaneously feel like I was parading around naked in public, while desperately wanting to hide.
It wasn’t until recently that I understood why: I felt weird about the newsletter's name because it was inextricably connected to a former time of my life.
The title, Some Happy Scribbles, was inspired by The Scribble Pad, the secret journal I kept in a Word document when I worked at Goldman Sachs. It was where I wrote about my yearning for work that felt “right” and made lists of “lessons learned” about everything from parenting to friendship to marriage. It was the digital version of the childhood stories I wrote on pieces of scrap paper and hid under my bed.
The main topic of The Scribble Pad was my recurring frustration with work: I wanted to do something that would challenge me, hold my interest for many years, make a positive difference in the world, and check the boxes I’d been told were paramount: a secure, well-paid job with a clear path to success.
By the time I landed at Goldman Sachs at 24, I was on “career” number three: first, I completed a Law Degree in my native Australia but rejected the idea of working in that field; next, I worked in a recruitment agency where I loved the all-women office but quickly became bored by the repetitive work. Overwhelmed with a sense of suffocation and the itch to escape, I quit that job and moved to London, where I began working for Goldman Sachs.
At first, I loved it: I relished hard work and was proud of my ability to handle 80-hour weeks. I liked that with no background in economics, I had to start at the bottom: it was an enormous challenge. I was honored to be in the company of so many pristine Ivy League pedigrees and fascinated by my bird's-eye view of global dealmaking. After a childhood that left me feeling insecure and unloved, I was thrilled to be welcomed by a company with a reputation for excellence and rigor. I quickly became ensconced in a culture that encouraged me to spend all my time at work and view colleagues as family.
But, to my dismay, after a year or so, the trapped feeling returned. Sitting in my office, as I responded to hundreds of e-mails per day, my stomach churning with dread at the meetings stacked upon each other in my calendar, I would daydream that writing in The Scribble Pad was my actual job. Of course, I told myself this was ridiculous: it was a selfish, unproductive habit and evidence of something deeply wrong with me.
Promotions, a move from London to New York, getting engaged, getting married, and having a baby were all temporary distractions from the discomfort. While pregnant with my first child, I hoped being a mother would satisfy my yearning for meaningful work and was furiously disappointed with myself when it didn’t.
After over a decade, I left Goldman Sachs and began another career, raising money for charities. With each new job, the cycle would repeat: imbued with hope, I’d quickly learn the ropes, then, usually around the one-year mark, I’d feel trapped and want to quit.
By my early 40s, I’d come to think of my lifelong quest to locate my calling as futile and selfish: I was happily married with two children and good at raising money for worthy causes. I felt like the opposite of the good girl—and helpful employee—I’d been brought up to be. Why couldn’t I stop fantasizing about my elusive purpose?
And then, one day, compelled by a gut feeling I didn’t understand, I manufactured my own personal rock bottom: instead of showing up for my first day of a new fundraising job, I called my boss and quit, lying to him about the reason why.
I had to lie because I was too ashamed to admit the truth: I was in my 40s yet didn’t know what I wanted to do for work and why I couldn’t find a job I could stick with. With a history of destructive mental illness in my family, I worried I was going mad.
When I’d been offered the job, a quiet voice in my head whispered misgivings, This job is exactly the same as the last one. You’ll be bored within months, and then you’ll want to quit. I endeavored to silence it by negotiating a “perfect” situation: flexible hours, the summer off, and a very generous salary.
Quitting was despicable, and I knew it.
As my shaky hands pressed my phone to my hot, sweaty ear, nausea roiling my belly, I listened as my boss first cajoled me to reconsider and take the job before erupting in fury and enunciating my deepest fear: “You’ve just ruined your career. I will make sure no one in New York ever hires you again.”
Jobless and scared, I sought the help of a therapist.
In my first session, I was ready to admit defeat, “Maybe what I need is to learn to be happy with the life that I have and stop searching for this idea of a purpose that’s clearly just a fantasy,” I told my new therapist.
“No,” she replied. “If you feel there’s something you’re meant to do and you haven’t found it yet, it’s real. We will find it, but it will take work. Let’s start with your childhood.”
What I learned, over the course of many sessions, was that as a child in a violent, abusive home, I coped by being a “good girl,” staying quiet about the enormous pain I felt, so that my parents would not get into trouble.
My secret-keeping-inner-six-year-old took charge and stayed in control. I remained silent for decades, believing it a harmless secret, and consequently became an expert at obscuring how I felt and what I wanted, even from myself.
I viewed any errant thoughts or feelings that conflicted with doing the “right” thing, as I understood it (having a well-paid job! working my way up the ladder! sticking with it no matter what!), as evidence of something wrong with me, not clues to what I wanted most.
To clearly state what I really wanted when it came to all aspects of my life, including my career, seemed unthinkable because no one had ever given me permission to do this.
I discovered that my cycle of hopefully starting new jobs, followed by the suffocating sense I was trapped, was reminiscent of the way I felt as a child when my parents’ behavior veered from loving to cruel and back again. As an adult, I was reenacting an unhealthy pattern that felt familiar and, in a bizarre way, comfortable.
Back in the days when I devoured self-help books in search of my elusive calling, the perky titles promised that once I’d found it, I’d be inundated with untold riches and accolades and live happily ever after. That if I was “doing something I loved, I’d never work a day in my life…”
Reader, that did not happen.
Starting a new career in midlife is humbling, but I’m sure it’s what I’m meant to be doing. I’m grateful for the enormous privilege of having a financial cushion and a supportive husband, allowing me to prioritize passion over pay.
This work is my dream come true. When I sit down to write, it’s easy to enter a flow state and completely lose track of time. I go to bed thinking about happiness problems I want to solve, and I wake up early, excited to get started. Creative ideas come easily. I’m no longer scribbling away in secret, I’m doing it in public, proudly…and on purpose!
**
The other day, a stranger sitting beside me at a dinner party asked, “So, what do you do for work?”
I smiled and said, “I write about intentional happiness. I have a weekly newsletter. Right now, it’s called Some Happy Scribbles, but I’m about to rename it, Happy on Purpose.”
“Happy on Purpose,” she repeated. “I love that.”
“Thanks!” I replied, eager to tell her more, “I’ve been a student of happiness forever, and my newsletter is all about practical strategies, tips, and advice, for a happier and more fun life.”
“That sounds like exactly what I need,” she said. “Sign me up!”
Thank you for being here as Some Happy Scribbles becomes Happy on Purpose. Writing in public can be terrifying, but hearing from you, my readers, is pure joy.
Many of you have been following me for years, and I want you to know how much I appreciate your loyalty, thoughtful comments, feedback, and advice. By sharing tips, wise advice, and practical happiness strategies, I hope to do my small part to improve the world and help fill your lives with more joy, delight, meaning, and fun.
A wonderful and unexpected bonus of writing this newsletter has been getting to know writers I admire and benefiting from their support. There are so many, but I want to especially thank Leigh Stein, Joanna Goddard, Lindsey Stanberry, Anne Helen Petersen, Sarah Knight, Emily Ley, Aja Frost, Aliza Sir, Maddie BurtonJolene Handy, Anne Kadet, and Caroline Cala Donofrio. Each one of these women writes a fantastic newsletter, and I highly recommend them all!
Thank you for reading this very personal essay. I’d love to know if you have any passion projects or yearnings that you secretly fantasize about. Do your childhood pursuits inform what you’re doing today?
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💌 Thank you so much for reading! Writing each weekly dispatch makes me happy, and I’m honored you’re here. See you next week! xo Amelia
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I love this!! Good for you!
Everything I do now (teach, run a business, make up stories using my imagination, boss other people around) is what I played as a child 😊