Think how often you see a friend or an acquaintance that you may not have seen for a few weeks or months and question comes up: "How's work going?"

What's a typical response for you? "Fine." "O.k." "Oh, I'm hanging in there" "It's all right." Or maybe even: "Horrible" "I'm going absolutely nutty!" or "Why'd you have to bring it up!"

When you ask question, or when question is asked of you, how come typical response isn't: "Fantastic!" "Wonderful!" or "Couldn't be better!"?

Think about how much of your life you spend working. We'll say average person works 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, for 45 years… That's 90,000 hours, which is 3,750 days which works out to just about 10.25 solid years! If average person lives to be 75, then we are spending roughly 1/7th of our life at work punching old time clock!

If you are going to spend 1/7th of your life doing anything… shouldn't you be doing something that gives you a sense of worth and satisfaction if not absolute elation?

Granted, many people truly love their work. They can't wait to get up in morning to get to office, or to get on road, or to start a new project. But I would argue this isn't case with most people.

So how do we enjoy same passion and love for what we do that some select others enjoy?

Why not start by copying attributes that these individuals have? I recognize many things that we may be able to copy, but three stand out more than others. People who truly enjoy their work: 1.Chose a line of work that they love and that excites them, 2.Have specific goals and accomplishments that they would like to attain and, 3.Have a positive self-image and enjoy higher levels of self-confidence than most.

First, chose a line of work that you love and that excites you. The old adage holds true, "Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life."

So often we are torn between choosing a career that we love, and choosing career that will bring us big paycheck! Is that big paycheck ultimately worth your sanity and your happiness?

My experience is that it isn't. At best, paycheck becomes an outlet for you to try and enjoy yourself outside of work. This causes other problems like inordinate amounts of debt, materialism, and other worries.

Why not choose a career that you truly love, regardless of paycheck attached to it, and then figure out how to make money at it?

For example, forget about paycheck and become a public school teacher like you've always wanted to. Then develop a new teaching method or product that you can market and sell to public.

Have you ever seen Monty Python’s “And Now for Something Completely Different?”

This collection of their most memorable skits includes one about world’s funniest joke.

We are looking over a disheveled man’s shoulder. He is hunched over a desk scribbling on a piece of paper. On floor of his ill-kept bedroom are piles of crumpled paper, his discarded joke-writing attempts.

The voice-over tells us that man, Ernest Scribbler, is about to write world’s funniest joke.

The writer (Michael Palin) writes joke, giggles, and starts laughing hysterically. Clutching paper, he falls over dead.

His mother (Eric Idle) enters room and is horrified at her son’s lifeless body. She snatches paper from his hand, thinking it is a suicide note.

She reads it, laughs, laughs harder, then laughs even harder, and falls over dead.