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Can Our Health and Happiness Abide Great Sacrifice?

July 5, 2012 by Sarah Edwards Leave a Comment

A University of Nebraska Medical Center study suggests that improving levels of happiness or satisfaction with life also gives rise to better health in the future.

The study indicates as we become happier and more satisfied with life, we tend to become healthier as well. Mohammad Siahpush, Ph.D., professor of health promotion, who led the study reports that those who expressed feeling happy and satisfied with their lives were more likely to have excellent, good or very good health three years later, as well as an absence of long-term and limiting health concerns and a better overall level of physical health.

This isn’t surprising. Even four years ago our President affirmed what so many of us are already knew – we’re facing rough waters and stormy times for years to come. “That we are in the midst of crisis is well understood,” he said. “Our nation is at war … our economy is weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices …. [T]he challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many.” He then called upon us for shared sacrifice.

This has not changed, but does it mean we can expect to be less happy, less satisfied and less healthy in the years ahead? Can sacrifice and satisfaction co-exist in America? That depends on us, doesn’t it?

Certainly if our happiness is tied to comfort, convenience, financial success, and material wealth we can expect some very unhappy and unhealthy folks in the foreseeable future. For nearly a century those are the very things the advertising industry has entrained us to believe are the path to happiness and satisfaction. So in this sense clearly the sacrifices have already begun. A recent article in the New York Times entitled Don’t Indulge. Be Happy cited a study entitled “From wealth to well-being? Money matters, but less than people think” that found that once people have an income of $75,000, income beyond does not lead to an increase in happiness.

We need only scan the news each day to know that’s true. High school sports programs are being cancelled. The number of students accepted for college is down while tuition costs are up and students leave with crippling debt. Foreclosures and bankruptcies are high. Hospitals and retail stores are closing. Millions in retirement funds have been lost. Up to fifteen million jobs have disappeared since 2007. States are running out of funds for unemployment benefits and cutting basic services. People are having to choose between food or fuel or medication. Some are living out of their cars, even in upscale communities like Santa Barbara, CA. Soup kitchens and food pantries are running out of food as the demand is greater from many who were once in the middle class.

Social Security and Medicare are under discussion for cuts to elderly who are already barely covering their costs for food, shelter, and medical care. As Michael Hiltzik wrote the Los Angeles Times, “Income drops sharply with age, presumably because most income sources become exhausted. For two-thirds of all elderly households, Social Security accounts for more than half of all income, and for one-third of those households, it provides 90%.”

For Americans who have been used to decades of prosperity such sacrifices are a bitter pill, especially for those who are already dealing with them. Few of us are feeling happy or satisfied about our current and projected circumstance. But can we feel happy and satisfied in it?

For the most part I’m not seeing a welcoming spirit of sacrifice as of yet. Though there are occasional news reports of workers willing to take pay cuts to prevent co-workers from being laid off, many Americans aren’t ready to accept the sacrifices they’re already coping with, let alone those ahead to which Obama alludes. Instead I see a lot of indignation and misfortune.

Parents furious about 50-student classrooms and cuts in school sports programs.
Students committing suicide over student loan debt.
People being jailed for debt.
Neighbors outraged that people are camping out in cars and RV’s on their neighborhood streets.
Protests about cuts in public services as well as cuts they think should be made.
Workers demanding plants be kept open and benefits kept in place.
ER doctors suing the government for decent reimbursement fees.
Teachers demonstrating for teacher’s pay over testing materials.
Parents unbelieving that they must drive a long distance get their sick child to the hospital.

I believe we’re seeing this general resistance to accept sacrifice when it touches our personal lives for two reasons:

1) a pervasive sense of entitlement on the one hand and
2) a profound sense of injustice on the other.

We’ve grown to expect an unending stream of the latest, best, fastest, most convenient, easy-to-use products and services of a quantity and quality beyond anything our ancestors could have imagined. But, as the reality of our economic and environmental challenges surge onward unabated, our sense of entitlement will inevitably erode. The question is, into what?

As far as a sense of injustice goes, that will be yet harder to accept. As I overheard one retiree comment, “Sacrifice? I’ve already sacrificed. I worked hard for 48 years and I paid out dearly needed income into Social Security and a 401k every one of those years so that I’d have some security. Now that I’m too old and sick from all the stress of working, 40% of my savings have disappeared at the hands of billionaires in failed financial institutions who are getting billions in bonuses that we’re going to have to sacrifice in order to pay for! And now they have the nerve to talk about cutting back our piddly Social Security and Medicare payments !! Give me a break!”

There is no doubt the greed Obama also alluded to has resulted in grave injustice to many middle-class and low income citizens. So, just how readily we will embrace the need to sacrifice and how satisfied we will be with our circumstance may well depend on how fairly distributed the sacrifices are and how evenly the suffering is spread.

But as psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl wrote in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, meaning, and I would say satisfaction and happiness, are not something bestowed upon us. They are something we must find within whatever our circumstances might be.

Do we want to view the years ahead as unsatisfying times of suffering and sacrifice that risk our health and well-being? Or do we want to find meaning in the difficulties we face and draw satisfaction from our efforts to respond to them? It’s up to us.

Does Being Middle Class Require a New Definition of Success?

July 1, 2012 by Sarah Edwards Leave a Comment

“Who is the middle-class?” This is the most common question we have been asked while doing dozens of interviews. When economists are asked about who is middle class, they answer the question by citing specific income ranges. But the ranges vary widely, anywhere from $25,000 to $250,000. So income doesn’t seem to be the key to why 60% of Americans define themselves as middle class.

Middle class is more of a state of mind than a bank balance. We define ourselves as middle class as long as we feel we’re on track to success and thereby to a happy, secure life. But just what is success?

That is the question John Izzo, Ph.D., asked 250 people from all walks of life in writing is book Five Secrets You Must Discover before You Die. You might be surprised at the answers he got.

First, he found that 84% of people he interviewed reported that “having money beyond a basic level of comfort did not increase their personal happiness.” Second, he found that 81% said the most important factor in career happiness was “being true to yourself.”

Psychologist and associate professor at Knox College, Tim Kasser goes a step further in disconnecting happiness from material success. In his books, The High Price of Materialism and Psychology and Consumer Culture: The Struggle for a Good Life in a Materialistic World, Kasser summarizes extensive research to show that after reaching a basic level of comfort, continually striving for more money and more things actually works against our sense of happiness.

In writing Middle-Class Lifeboat, we found that in choosing to pursue new lifestyles and sometimes new careers, the people we interviewed had re-defined success . It no longer meant making more money or owning more things. They were stepping out of our materialistic consumer culture and found they were HAPPIER!!

So instead of aspiring to some externally-measured, material definition of success, perhaps it’s time for us to re-evaluate what makes us happy and define that as success. What would that be for you? How would it be different from what society’s definition of “success?”

If you think we can help, we offer counseling.

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Comments and questions on the substance of this blogs are welcome. If you have other questions about this website, please contact me directly for a consulting appointment

Lost Life Skills – What We Need to Relearn

June 26, 2012 by Sarah Edwards Leave a Comment

No doubt about it, the basics in our cost of living is getting more expensive. We can get a t-shirt or new cell phone for less these days, but a loaf of bread, a dozen eggs, heating to keep our home warm, a tank of gas, health care, or a college education, those costs are skyrocketing. It’s no wonder so many folks are feeling anxious or angry about what’s going on.

Some weeks ago I had the opportunity to meet two people whose ages span several generations yet they share an insight about one thing we can do to reduce our eco-nomic stress.

The first was a retired doctor. When I told him I work with clients on their financial mental health as part of my counseling, he was immediately enthusiastic. “That is so needed right now,” he said. Then he went on to share his perceptions of why. “Most people are not at all prepared for life today and especially for what’s ahead,” he explained. “I’m afraid my generation has helped create this problem. I grew up on a farm. My parents survived the Great Depression. We grew our own food. We all worked. There were many daily chores. There was no time for play. But when we grew up we went to school, did well, made lots of money, and didn’t want that kind of life for our children. We created a world for them in which everything is provided for them. My daughter can’t put dinner on the table for her family without a microwave.”

The next day I met a young professional woman who’s married and just starting her family. When I told her about our desire to teach life skills courses through a Let’s Live Local program so our remote community can become more self-sustaining, she quickly volunteered to help. She said,”I could teach a lot of those skills! There’s so much we can do for ourselves and each other instead of paying others to do everything for us.” She admits she’s a throwback but prides herself on doing as many things as possible herself: cooking, sewing, gardening, knitting, cleaning, etc. Basic living tasks are fun to her. She enjoys them. Her husband suggested remodeling their home to accommodate a live-in nanny to take care of the house and their baby so she can work full-time. She can’t image doing that. “I’d rather earn less and do what needs to be done myself, than work all the time to pay for others to take care of our life.”

I asked how she developed these basic life skills and such a love for them. “From my grandparents,” she explained. “They had all these skills that my mother wasn’t interested in learning. But I was. Now my mother is getting older and I’m doing a lot of things for her she can’t afford to have others do. I’m not worried about the need to become more self-sufficient. That’s how I already live.”

Reflecting on my own life, I fall somewhere between these two generations. My mother is of the doctor’s generation. Her parents lived through the Great Depression and she taught me many basic living skills. But I was growing up in a different world where you were ostracized if you did things like wear home-made clothes or bring a homemade lunch to school. Canning? Repairing things? Maintaining your own car? No way! Though I learned how to do many of these things, I set that knowledge aside to pursue a full-time career and paid others to take care of the business of living. Now, one of my goals is to reclaim them and grateful to my mother for passing them on.

There is much our grandparents and older parents can teach us about how to live more simply and sustainably. Judging from my conversation with the young mother, when we get past the idea of needing to buy the basics of a simple, good life from others, these lessons are empowering and create a sense of enjoyment, security and peace of mind that’s fast slipping away for so many of us.

The Inner Compass’s Role in Finding a Sustainable Living

March 27, 2012 by Sarah Edwards Leave a Comment

It’s easy to confuse who we are with what we do. This confusion accounts for much of the stress we experience when faced with making big changes in our lives. But studies show that there is an intrinsic genetic element to who we are that can guide us toward the most rewarding paths for our lives. Some of us just seem to know where to go. What is this internal navigation system that guides these individuals from one direction to the next?

If we can connect with this inner compass, we need never feel lost.

Perhaps we can best understand our level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with our circumstances in terms of how well our abilities, interests and aptitudes coincide with our opportunities to express them. The joy that comes from pursuing your innate desires, loves and passions can lead you precisely where you most want to.

The more our interests, abilities and creativity are recognized and encouraged, the better we feel and the clearer we become about who we are and what we want. Who is the you that never changes? Where is your joy? Where is your laughter? That is your inner compass. Trust it to steer you in the right direction.

The key to finding your way is to know who you are, what gives you joy and what you will and won’t do. If we listen, our inner compass will tell us when we’re on track and when we’re not, when to stick it out and when to head off in a new direction. In the crush of life’s changing demands, it’s easy to lose touch with our inner navigational system.

So how do you discover your inner compass? One way is to take the time to consider one of your favorite work experiences. What did you like about it? Now consider one of your favorite experiences unrelated to work. What did you like about it? Look for words patterns, feelings, and images that repeatedly suggest common themes. Consider your favorite childhood experiences too. Usually there is a thread of similarity that runs along all the favorite memories- work-related, personal and from childhood. That thread is known as the inner compass. These core themes are at the heart of who you are and are an expression of your inner compass. They are your personal essence in action.

Paying attention to the feelings you have identified will guide your life in a satisfying new direction. If these feeling are consistently absent from what you’re doing or considering, then you’re heading away from the direction your inner compass would guide you. HhWhenever you catch yourself saying or thinking any of the following statements you are not listening to your inner compass. You are instead sabotaging your efforts to fulfill your desires.

I’m bored.
I shouldn’t feel this way.
There’s nothing I’m really passionate about.
But this is what I have to do.
What’s the use? There’s nothing I can do about it.
Yes, but what if…?

If you know you need to change and you’re ready to make a change, but you’re not making any progress toward it, it’s a sure sign that you aren’t tuned in. Without an inner navigation system to guide us, we either reach a standstill or we move on aimlessly without sense of where we’re headed or why. If you haven’t discovered your inner compass, you have to make the effort to find it.

If you think we can help, we offer counseling.

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Comments and questions on the substance of this blogs are welcome. If you have other questions about this website, please contact me directly for a consulting appointment.

Headstart Programs Face Cuts in Funding

January 11, 2012 by Sarah Edwards 1 Comment

An article today in the Los Angeles Times once again mentions a federal study showing that “children in Head Start improve their language and literacy skills but that many of the gains disappear by the end of the first year.” I worked for a Head Start Regional office for eight years after the inception Read More … of the program and that claim was made in earlier research as well and consistently ever since. The implication is always that these results mean that there is something wrong with Head Start. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to ask instead what is wrong with the public elementary schools that they are unable to sustain the wonderful gains made by children in this program?

Despite such initial setbacks however, it should be noted that reliable studies have found resoundingly favorable long-term effects on grade repetition, special education, and high school graduation rates for Head Start children. (See http://www.nhsa.org/research/research_bites) Sadly somehow these more extensive long-term findings never makes into the articles about the excellent program, clerical oversights notwithstanding.

Sarah Anne Edwards, Ph.D.

Paul’s note: One can conclude that Headstart educates while the public schools dumb kids down. While there is enormous need to cut government debt, that most people understand and support, the preparation of coming generations to operate our society and country is a priority. If you read my blog entitled “Tutors for All,” you can see I believe there are less expensive approaches to educating our young. Sarah also wrote a Letter to the Editor to the Los Angeles Times.

Comments on the substance of the blogs are welcome. If you have other questions, please contact me directly for a consulting appointment.