Marcus Buckingham tells us that women are accomplishing more and more and becoming increasingly less happy in the process. As surprising as this might seem to some, my response is more along the lines of, "of course!"
A couple of months ago, as I began this series about aspiration and inspiration, I wrote an article entitled, What Do You Want Out Of Life, Really? For some, the answers would seem to lie in measures the "real world" would understand: money, cars, jobs, houses and other kinds of physical world accomplishments or acquisitions. However, many of us have gone through that cycle, acquired like crazy, and still wound up feeling unfulfilled. Sound familiar?
In a somewhat parallel universe, Marcus has been touching on this them from a slightly different direction. For his series on women's happiness, Marcus has spent a goodly amount of time interviewing women (and men) about their state of happiness and has discovered that women are distinctly less happy than they were years ago.
Part of his premise starts with an imaginary look forward from 40 years ago, postulating how women would feel were they to see women running four of eight Ivy League universities, or women outnumbering men in the management and supervisory positions, earning more university degrees than men, and other measures of success in the world. The implication seems to be that if you were to gain more in terms of physical world success you would naturally become happier.
My experience in working with thousands of individuals over the past 30+ years leads me to believe there is very little correlation between material world success and happiness or fulfillment. (Just to be clear here: I am definitely writing this piece more from the perspective of someone who has moved past basic survival levels than from that of someone who is struggling to find food, shelter or other basic survival needs.)
Having read the articles Marcus has written so far, my response is more toward "of course" than "surprise" that women might be experiencing less happiness over the past two decades. To be clear, there's no such thing as "women" in the sense that if you are a woman, then you are necessarily one of these women who, statistically speaking, are less happy. That's an individual experience, and, in my world view, an individual choice. Or more accurately stated, a consequence of individual choices made or avoided - more on this in another article downstream.
In my work on the difference between symbols vs. experience, I have found that many people seem to suffer from the illusion that happiness, satisfaction or fulfillment (experience) are a result of accomplishing some goal or, more to the point, of acquiring something in the material world (symbol).
I can certainly understand and have experienced the illusionary pull of a better future if only I could (fill in the blank). However, my experience suggests that all kinds of us, men and women alike, have made the choice to either defer happiness today for the prospects of an even happier future if only I could (fill in the blank) or have equated happiness with achieving or acquiring something in the physical world. It's kind of the old bumper sticker mentality of "He wins who acquires the most toys." (And every single one of those bumper stickers I have ever seen leads with "he," never "she.")
If we accept the data Marcus has gathered that suggests women are, in fact, less happy, then the "what's going on here" question seems pretty darn relevant. To me, it's quite understandable.
My theory as that over the past 40 years, as American society exited the "Father Knows Best" or "Leave It To Beaver" mentality of the 50's and 60's, we seem to have increasingly equated success and fulfillment with jobs, career advancement, position title, bank accounts, and other symbols of success. If you were one of those statistical women who took on job, career or economic goals as your "symbols" of success, you just might have wound up sacrificing what mattered most in hopes of greener pastures at the other end of job, career or economic goals.
What if you won the race to the top: a better job, increased paycheck, more "toys" than the boys? Did you bargain for all that comes with it? Did you anticipate the sacrifices you would have to make to get there? How are those trades looking now?
As Marcus addresses the rhetorical question of "what's going on here," he offers several tips in his article about What the Happiest Women Seem to Have in Common. His first two tips resonate strongly with what I have learned over the years and provide a foundation on which to build a more fulfilled and successful life. Marcus calls them: Focus on moments, more than goals, plans or dreams and Accept what (you) find.
There is a certain wisdom here and well worth considering. He has done a great job presenting this aspect of the process so I won't need to expand on what he has already written.
However, I think we can take these two elements even deeper. Together, they represent two very powerful principles of the universe that I would translate as: Live in the present (Be Here Now) and Learn to accept and cooperate with what is.
Much has been written about these, and I would like to add a few bars myself as it relates to living an aspirational life. Next week, we will explore the first of these: what does it mean to "live in the present?"
For now, how about something old but true: "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift, that's why they call it the present."
There's more to come on this theme. Please let me know your thoughts, questions, concerns or suggestions, either by leaving a comment below, or by sending me an email.
Russell Bishop is an Educational Psychologist, professional life coach and management consultant, based in Santa Barbara California. You can find out more about Russell at http://www.lessonsinthekeyoflife.com. Contact Russell by email at: Russell (at) lessonsinthekeyoflife.com
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Kristen Houghton: Unhappiness and Women - Isn't It Subjective?
Please stop being/doing what the society tells you, you should start doing what you would really like/love to do.
Just one man's opinion.
GodYesOrNo.com
I find its useful to think about happiness as day to day surviving in some kind of 'style', or attitude that is not derived from the mechanics of the survival but connected to it through our self-consciousness, through our instincts for self-expression. How to characterise this? There has been a lot of research into happiness with few results to be sure about except, perhaps, that one's level of happiness is related to the number of friends we have, and that happiness tends to give us longer life.
We need to ditch the idea that we are all fundamentally unique individuals, and learn instead how the human personality has limited variations, and that we are more alike than we dare to think. To cut to the chase. Our very best partner, then, becomes someone like ourselves, because that is the only situation in which we can grow fully and realise the quality of self-expression that creates happiness out of surviving.
Perhaps women should stop trying to reinvent themselves via plastic surgery, botox, makeup, etc and just experience who they really are - not other peoples ideals of who they should be.
They have enough on their plates being the main nurturing figure in most households whether they work outside the home or not. Let go of the pretense of being what others & society expect and be yourself - start getting to know yourself from the inside out and the natural beauty and confidence will radiate.
Socrates said Happiness is the lack of pain. He really was talking about contentment. That is unsexy and not the stuff of fairy tales, but striving for (or more succinctly accepting) contentment, is what people need to do. When we try to be happy, we are also trying to have the selfish fantasy of the drug addict.
I find a lot of the theories espoused here to be stimulating and not without some merits, but the issue is a matter of expectations and desires. If you expect to live on the moon, you will be sorely disappointed. If you can accept the view of the moon you get from the window in your room, you may find yourself comfortable and satisfied. And the fool who actually tries to live on the moon will find himself dying from a lack of atmosphere.
Wealthy people are notoriously unhappy, because they still aren't content. Those of us with modest means, but live within them, and save for a rainy day, might discover that we have pretty decent lives. Strivers get admired and praised a lot, but I think they are all very sad, angry, selfish dreamers. They waste so much of their lives for status that can't keep them warm, or give them love.
STAY-AT-HOME WIVES WERE NO HAPPIER THAN WOMEN IN THE LABOR FORCE.
Thus, the discussion here about whether women would be happier at home or not is misplaced, because whatever the so-called "malady" is, it affects all types of women. grrr.
In particular, women with careers scored no more unhappiness than women without careers. This directly works against the basic premise of the above post.
In short, the whole discussion is based on a misunderstanding of just one topic.
Not all women are unhappy with balancing career and family. Some of us love our careers and are miserable without it. I'm a teacher and teaching is one of the industries hard hit by our economy. I got laid off. I miss teaching! I miss knowing that I am contributing to the world in a positive way. I miss knowing I am self sufficient and rely on no one. THAT is making me unhappy.
I think no one is happy today. Unemployment is on the rise. The world goes so fast. I am certain that mothers and fathers wish they had more time in the day to balancet career and family.
That being said, A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE WRITTEN THIS ARTICLE ON FEMALE UNHAPPINESS. That's the bottom line.
There are few outside jobs for anyone here, so most kids are raised in their own homes by their own very loving mamas, who pour on the affection really thick, to bond the family for life. I hear how happy the kids are here by all the rapturous giggling and laughter and general good cheer and behavior. The climate is very mild; - it's very easy to observe what's going on. This is NOT a European model based on fear, guilt, greed, materialism.
The elders here are like the royalty of their large extended families who lovingly care for them. Old people do not have to worry about how they are going to survive old age. The elders have great love and respect because they raised their young with great love. Believe me, this is a better way to go.
We are all going to get old and need help.
Men are not superior to women in the first place. Much more respect needs to be given to women who lovingly care for their
You may seem happy watching other families taking care of their own.
I don't envy your decision to not have children. It looks like you are going to be one lonely old lady. You are going to have lot's of company. I see lot's of middle aged women that have put off having children, only to never have any kids at all.
I did not have children because that was my choice, and one month before my 65th birthday, I still do not regret it. From college age I knew that I just didn't have that nurturing instinct.
I have a wonderful husband who didn't want to have children, either. I guess that we were lucky to have found each other, because 2 years after we met, I was diagnosed with cancer and was warned against having children. Some men might have run away, but we married while I was still undergoing chemotherapy. That was in 1986.
I taught school for 33 years, and that was the perfect amount of contact with children for me. My friends who were both teachers and mothers were often impatient with their own kids as well as with their students. At least when I went home at night, the demands upon me by children ceased. My husband and I always enjoyed our friends' children, and were also always happy to go home to a quiet house with our cats who never came home drunk or wrecked the car!
The math just doesn't work. The more status women gain (while men remain the same or fall), the smaller the pool of men any given woman can be attracted to becomes. "Where are all the good men?" Over there, with less status than you, and that's why you don't notice them.
If a woman's professional achievement and high status balance out the deficit in relationship satisfaction, okay, then the net happiness goes up. But it doesn't seem to work that way.
Accepting what is? I accept the fact that on weekends I get to spend as much time with my family as I can, that durring the week it never seems like I sit down and that for the rest of my life I will never put material objects above the people I love. I tell them I love them every day! I worry about the future but that doesn't stop me from making a paper mache tree, carving pumpkins, decorating christmas trees or even having an occasional food fight.
It's not easy to be true to yourself in our society - not by a longshot. But it is the secret to fulfillment.