and you call this cessation of all need "necessity":
there is the origin of your virtue. "
~ Thus Spoke Zarathustra,
Friedrich Nietzsche
John Campbell said and i've read a hundred times: Follow Your Bliss.
This is the road to happiness.
Karl Marx wrote and Erich Fromm quotes, "you can exchange love only for love, confidence for confidence." The same goes for being happy. If you are full of joy, people are more likely to enjoy your company and feel joyous as well.
Not much in this world is as rewarding as knowing you have engendered someone else's sincere smile, simply because you were doing something you like to do. Whether you're performing a self-absorbed concerto, administering selfless care to invalids, or serving as a music therapist to the mentally ill, the thrill of your earnest devotion is infectious. If you consistently do what you do best and it makes someone else feel half-as-blessed with glee, then, and only truly then, you should accept and realize that you have found your true bling-bling.
If everything else fades away while being in the throes of your work and it prompts others to cheer, to feel less pain, or be likewise inspired to create—well, then don't hesitate, don't wait to commit yourself.
Better offers of money, bigger offices, or other material perks elsewhere are inherently meaningless because meaning itself is inherently internal. Our psyches and our hearts and the predilections of our spirits generate meaning, not the objects of this consuming life. Fortune will come to you as long as you throw yourself into the plush folds of that which you know is your purpose.
The biggest regret is time wasted, for you can never have more of that. Office space, salary (indentured servitude) and executive perks can be prospectively increased at any time. But they do not lead toward happiness or back to missed opportunity. Let those two elude you and you may very well find yourself more successful monetarily or socially, but in the end, upon retrospection, you'll not only realize what you've been missing, but also what would have been more meaningful.
Don't let yourself look back in regret. Let bliss guide you. Think and act positively and you will be and live happiness. One cannot ask for much more than this from life, for life itself is giving. So, give back to it by living it exactly as your soul tells you to live.
Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much."
~ The Art of Loving, Erich Fromm
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