I was downtown yesterday, to meet a friend at The Common and as I looked for a parking spot, I noticed something hard to miss: the vast majority of folks coming off work looked really pissed. And this, of course, begs the questions: Why? Why is everyone so mad? And what are they mad at?

Is it a matter of too many hot days? Maybe, though the anger I saw was the long-term, chronic kind of miffed that comes from being too long in an untenable situation.

It made me wonder about the statistic that said 70% of us are not in the job we should be in. 

Think about it. That’s a staggering number.

Why?

Why are we doing things that don’t make us happy? Survival? Maybe.  Lazy? Could be? Too cowardly to really pursue the career we want? Perhaps.

But it made me think of The Happiness Hypothesis and that one of the ways to be happy is to do a job you love to do. I love writing. Even when it breaks my heart”especially when it breaks my heart”because it reminds me that I’m emotionally invested in what I’m doing. On my worst day, there’s nothing I’d rather do than write.

And so it makes me sad to think of all those crowds I saw yesterday, seeing the same expression of misery mirrored on their faces¦I hope it’s the heat. I hope it’s the humidity that makes them sad, because the alternative”that they’re all trapped in jobs they hate, jobs that will take 1/3 of their day and 40+ years of their life”is just too heartbreaking to contemplate.