All the small successes bring me happiness, both in work and outside it. Before my current job, I spend about 2.5 years trying to get a PHD (in physics), and I

All the small successes bring me happiness, both in work and outside it. Before my current job, I spend about 2.5 years trying to get a PHD (in physics), and I quit. There were several reasons, but a major one was that I didn't feel I had any successes. Since then I've been doing software development, and there are small successes and wins every day, or at least every week. A feature is finished, a bug is fixed, a colleague tells me that something I wrote saved them time or hassle, or even that they enjoyed in the new UX. My wife told me I was a different person in the new role: much more relaxed and happy. I agree. Now I have two children, and it's another source of a stream of small successes that I can enjoy. First steps, first words, first shoe laces tied, first cucumber cut by themselves etc. They are not my own, but I'm sufficiently emotionally attached to them to derive happiness from theirs.