Gallup just released its World Happiness Report and found – for the second year in a row – that the U.S. did not make the list of the top 20 happiest nations.

Not many of us will be surprised by that result. In fact, we may even raise our hands and admit, “Yes, that’s me, I’m part of the unhappiness problem in America.”

Discontentment and unhappiness hit even the most cheerful of us occasionally. We look at our jobs, our marriages, our houses, our social lives, our material possessions, and frankly, they aren’t what we hoped for or expected. Life gets monotonous, we begin looking at the greener grass on the other side of the fence, convincing ourselves that if we just move on and find something else, we’ll be satisfied.

How do we fight this discontentment, this unhappiness that seems to plague every one of us at some time or another? One unexpected answer that recently came across my path is craftsmanship.

Craftsmanship is something that I often think of in the realm of carpenters or others who create beautiful, high-quality products – something that we rarely see anymore. But in simplest terms, craftsmanship is defined as production – the quality of the labor that we put forth. In that sense, every one of us has the ability to be a craftsman, whether we’re in a high-end job or a menial one. Whether or not we are craftsmen in our jobs, however, depends on the effort and skill we put into our daily tasks.

Author Bernard Iddings Bell recognized this in his mid-20th century work, “Crisis in Education: A Challenge to American Complacency.”

“Man exists to do creatively, in the most craftsmanlike manner possible, all things that must be done,” Bell wrote, “great things like government, or mothering, or the healing of minds and bodies; small things like making beds, or hoeing corn, or driving a truck; things in the public eye like making speeches, or unleashing atomic energy, or making peace; obscure things like selling groceries, or running a bus, or teaching school.”

In other words, even the lowliest jobs and tasks – the ones we feel are unimportant or unnoticeable – are ones at which we can each be a craftsman, excelling in our execution of them. And when we approach each task like a craftsman, that happiness – so lost and unattainable today – bubbles up within, Bell says.

He finds inner peace who works at whatever is in front of him, not for the pay he gets or for what he can buy with that pay, not for applause or gratitude, but for sheer joy in creativity. There are a vast number of tasks to be performed in this world, most of them not romantic. They may be done in one of two ways: just to get them over with as quickly and as painlessly as possible, in which case they become a monotonous burden hard to bear; or each as beautifully and thoroughly as possible, in which case life is good to the taste.

And therein lies at least one secret to happiness. Inevitably, each of us will come to some point in time where the tasks in front of us are not what we envisioned ourselves doing, nor are they what we really want to do. We become, as Bell says, “restless, unreliable, combative, caught in a web of doubt and dismay.”

When that happens, we have the choice to give into that dismay and despair, joining the ranks of the unhappy Americans, or we have the chance to be faithful, craftsmen determined to do our jobs – no matter how menial – to the best of our abilities.

And we must do this not only for ourselves, but for our children as well, as an example of how to approach life when it doesn’t work out like we want. “There will be no recovery of serenity, no mutual patience sufficient for fraternity,” Bell explains, “until we learn ourselves and teach our boys and girls that unless human beings become creative artists [those craftsmen, doing their work wholeheartedly] they remain petulant children, dangerous, predatory.”

The wisest man whoever lived once wrote: “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean [average] men.”

Faithful craftsmanship has its eventual reward – and that is something which can bring joy to the heart of every American.

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The republication of this article is made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal. 

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