You can’t put a price on happiness

Work hard in school to get top grades so you can go to college. Become a doctor or a lawyer. Make lots of money."

That's the advice I heard and saw the entire time I was growing up and going to school. I watched my oldest stepbrother graduate at the top of his class and spend the next decade in medical school to become a doctor. The next oldest spent only slightly less time in ophthalmology school in Oregon.

Then there was me, the black sheep. I graduated high school, went to college for a year, where I majored in beer and pretty girls. I then proceeded to goof off, join the Army and otherwise work my tail off. Thanks to a couple of my younger siblings who screwed up badly by comparison, my parents' disappointment in me was short-lived.

Eventually I had to grow up. Each job became something to add to the résumé in an effort to gain enough experience to move up and on to a better one. Over the years I worked for a small police department in Washington, drove liquid oxygen and liquid nitrogen trucks and helped my parents run their various businesses. Somewhere along the way I returned to college (this time with a more serious approach) and managed to stay on the dean's list and graduated with honors. As I have mentioned in previous columns, I met my wife when we were both working at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. She was an inside machinist and I was a shipwright. Combined, our income was six figures. I had a brand new Suburban and Mustang. She had a boat and a nice house. I was averaging 1,000 hours a year in overtime. We had money to spend on our children for lavish birthdays and Christmases.

Sounds great, doesn't it? Then why were we so miserable?

Don't get me wrong, there were some aspects of the job that were fun. Standing almost 200 feet in the air on pipe that is only 2.5 inches in diameter, looking over the Puget Sound from atop a giant scaffold system you helped design and erect to encapsulate a dry-docked aircraft carrier is a rush that can't be described. I met and befriended some truly great people there.

Then again, standing in a November monsoon in the bottom of a pit or on scaffolding with no cover for 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for weeks on end could get old. Inhaling and ingesting copious amounts of arsenic, cadmium, mercury, welding grit, asbestos and other scrumptious goodies often made for a bad day. Mostly, it was just the rather childish and over-the-top politics of the place that wore Glenny and I out. But day after day, we trudged in the door at night knowing that we were doing what was best for our children. We were being "responsible," but were we really?

I had an epiphany one day. As I watched another young man start his career at the shipyard thanks to a father or an uncle who helped him land the job, I remembered how my own young boy talked about wanting "to grow up and work with dad," and it suddenly hit me: My God! There was no way I would ever want my children working here. What was I teaching them by making a career out of a job that I hated? To be responsible? That success in life is measured by how much money you make regardless of your happiness? I never wanted to look any of my children in the eye one day and tell them it was OK if they were miserable, so long as they were making good money. I felt trapped, though. After all, a man can't just up and quit his job just because he doesn't like it. I had a family to feed. Then fate intervened.

I was diagnosed with various medical issues that made it impossible to keep working in an industrial area. PSNS became a thing of the past for Glenny and I (I convinced her to quit) and we moved across the state. Eventually, we found our way to Alaska (a return for me, but a new life for Glenny and the kids). The new cars are no more, our house is small and we survive paycheck-to-paycheck. But I have a job I absolutely love, I come home happy most every day, and you know what? My kids are a lot happier, too.

On our meager income we've managed to drive the Alaska Highway. We've made several road trips to McCall, Idaho, the Oregon coast and spent a summer in San Diego.

We did these things because we now had the time to do them. Sure, we didn't stay in resort hotels or eat in fancy restaurants. Heck, sometimes the only food we ate was what we brought with us in coolers. But I finally learned that kids don't care! Spending time with mom and dad on trips and experiencing new things was heaven for them. Years later they still talk about those trips.

Now my kids are all older and one is set to graduate in a few months. I pray that I've set the right example and made it clear to them what matters most, that they're happy. Work to live. Don't live to work.

I will be most proud of them if they enjoy life, like what they do and make the most of their brief time on this planet.

Just the other day I told them that I'll feel more successful if they feel fulfilled despite living in an apartment and driving a 10-year old truck than if they're miserable while living in a 15,000-square-foot home with a garage full of new cars.

Call me foolish. Call me irresponsible (Lord knows my in-laws do), but I'll die a satisfied man if I can do so knowing my kids are living happy lives, wealthy or poor.

Ben Compton is a Palmer resident and publishes his column as "Compton's Corner," the same title used by his grandmother, Phyllis Compton, a longtime Frontiersman columnist.