Excerpts from Is There a Happiness Gender Gap?

Wolfers and Stevenson found that over the last three decades, expectations for success among 12th grade girls had increased significantly in almost all areas of their lives, including their career ambitions, leadership roles, and contributions to society. What’s more, these girls increasingly felt strong constraints on their time, with leisure and fun being sacrificed to further their achievements. This finding could shed light on the survey results Wolfers and Stevenson uncovered about women’s happiness. “Perhaps women feel that if they are not succeeding everywhere, they are not succeeding anywhere,” says Wolfers.

“Women must work very hard to have a secure social network,” says Olds. At home, moms find there aren’t many other women in the neighborhood, and women often don’t find time to socialize at work. As women climb the career ladder, they tend to work more from home, which only increases their isolation. “They’re lonely,” says Olds, “and loneliness makes people unhappy.”

Indeed, studies suggests that women may be affected emotionally by social isolation even more than men. In their research on women and stress, Laura Klein of Penn State University and Shelley Taylor of UCLA have found that women reach for their children and seek support from other women when they are stressed, rather than responding in the “fight or flight” pattern common to men. Just being with other women has a calming effect on women, according to Klein and Taylor, and women report more benefits in general from their friendships than men do

“We need to remind ourselves where we came from,” Coontz says. Men’s and women’s relationships are better; there are more possibilities for work and social mobility; life offers more choices, even if these choices can be stressful. “But women should learn to embrace those challenges,” she suggests. “Instead of comparing things to how we wish they were, we should compare them to how they used to be.”

That may be easier said than done. For better or worse, women are increasingly expecting more of themselves—to have families, work, nurture others, be competitive, and be thin and beautiful, all at once. Hinshaw argues that we should intervene when women are girls, to make sure that parents and teachers give girls enough free time to decide what’s important in life, rather than pushing them to be overachievers. If girls and women could be less focused on being perfect, he says, they would be happier with themselves. “We need to get them away from mirror-gazing and move them toward more involvement in their communities,” says Hinshaw.

Of course, more research is needed before anyone can offer the perfect prescription for women. But until then, perhaps my friends and other women can draw on what science has already generally shown to be keys to happiness for all people: spending more time counting our blessings, staying connected with each other and our communities, and letting go of some of that tendency toward perfectionism. After all, whether or not this research accurately portrays the changing mood of women, there’s no harm in anyone—men or women—doing what it takes to find happiness.

After repeated reminders by a dear friend, i watched this very old TED video..

It reminded me of what i read about the purpose of education

“Education is an activity which prepares a man “to act skillfully and magnanimously under all circumstances of peace and war.” It would also bring out the best in man that is already in him”

From the Awesomeness filled “Kung Fu Panda”

(Po and his dad, Mr. Ping, are leaving along with the rest of the villagers. Po is still grief-stricken with despair over the results of the Dragon Scroll)
Mr. Ping: Po…I…I’m sorry things didn’t work out…It…just…wasn’t meant to be.
(Po leans on the cart full of luggage, still disappointed)
Mr. Ping: Po, forget everything else. Your destiny still awaits. We are noodle folk. Broth runs deep through our veins.
Po: (In disbelief) I don’t know, dad. Honestly, sometimes, I can’t believe I’m actually your son.
Mr. Ping: (Scoffs in embarrassment) Uh, Po…I think it’s time I told you something I should have told you…a long time ago.
Po: (Expecting to hear something like “You’re not really my son. I adopted you”) Okay…
Mr. Ping: The secret ingredient…Of my secret ingredient soup.
Po: (Disappointed) Oh.
Mr. Ping: C’mere, c’mere. The secret ingredient is… (Pause) nothing.
Po: (Completely surprised) Huh?
Mr. Ping: You heard me. Nothing. There is no secret ingredient.
Po: Wait, wait… It’s just plain old noodle soup? You don’t add some kind of special sauce or something?
Mr. Ping: Don’t have to. To make something special, you just have to believe it’s special.

One of the BEAutiful stories about Parable from the storytelling workshop..

Truth and Parable

Once was a person named Truth who had a lot to say. Truth would go to a town, find the market square and start to tell everyone what he knew to be true. However, people would simply retreat in disgust at the site of Truth. They would turn away, one after another, saying:

“Oh, the naked Truth”! or “Gawds, it’s the dirty Truth” or “Save us all, it’s the awful Truth!” or many more similar exclamations.

For Truth was smelly, naked, awful, dirty and many more things not very palatable to the local populace. They turned away, never listening to Truth’s message. Town after town, Truth would walk away in despair; he needed to be heard, but no one was lending him an ear.

One day, Truth overheard someone talking about Good King Parable’s lands, and how the King was so wise that no problem went unsolved in his domains. Truth journeyed to the distant kingdom, and found Parable’s castle. He entered the brightly lit chamber room unannounced. All the splendidly dressed courtiers turned away as they glimpsed his presence and, as normal, shouted loudly about the horrible, terrible, unbearable Truth.

King Parable, sitting on his golden throne at the head of the long hall rose suddenly, and everyone fell silent, even Truth. King Parable then said to Truth;

“Truth, be still and I shall help you be heard”.

King Parable clapped his hands and a bevy of servants came with soap and water and sponges and cleansed Truth from head to toe.

King Parable clapped his hands again and a knot of slaves came with many oils and perfumes of rose, lavender and apple blossom and rubbed and massaged Truth until Truth glowed.

King Parable clapped his hands once more and a gaggle of merchants came with a rainbow of colored silks and shoes clustered with pearls and rubies and emeralds. They dressed Truth and he sparkled in the evening sunlight beaming into King Parable’s long hall.

And now King Parable said “Truth, go forth and tell your tale, for Truth will always be heard when wrapped in the silks of Parable”.

Truth has been gladly heard ever since.

After “You’ve got mail” and “Stranger than Fiction”, the movie “Julie and Julia” has swept me away and is to stay within me for a very long time to come.

One of my favourite lines from the movie..
Julie says to her husband ” Do you know why I enjoy so much cooking? Because after a whole day when nothing – and i really mean nothing – is certain, you come back home and you know that by adding egg, sugar and milk to the chocolate… the mix will get thicker. It’s such a consolation…”

From Julie Powell’s blog

Julia Child began learning to cook when she was thirty-seven years
old. She started because she wanted to feed her husband Paul. She
started because though she’d fallen in love with great food late, when
she did she’d fallen hard. She started because she was in Paris. She
started because she didn’t know what else to do.

Who knows how it happens, how you come upon your essential gift? For
this was hers. Not the cooking itself so much – lots of people cook
better than Julia. Not even the recipes – others can write recipes.
What was Julia’s true gift, then? She certainly had enormous energy,
and that was a sort of gift, if a genetic one – perhaps the one thing
about her you can pin down on the luck of the draw. She was a great
teacher, certainly – funny, and generous, and enthusiastic, with so
much overbrimming confidence that she had nothing to do with the
surplus but start doling it out to others. But she also had a great
gift for learning. Perhaps that was the talent she discovered in
herself at the age of 37, at the Cordon Bleu School in Paris – the
thirst to keep finding out, the openness to experience that makes life
worth living.

She was no bending reed, of course. She had no use for silly,
fear-driven food fads; she could be set in her ways, even mulish, and
when she wanted to she could be withering. That’s fine. That’s good
even. We don’t need saints. Who changes their life under the
influence of a saint? Okay – don’t answer that. But the point is –
Julia was so impressive, so instructive, so exhilarating, because she
was a woman, not a goddess. Julia didn’t create armies of drones,
mindlessly equating her name with taste and muttering “It’s a Good
Thing” under their minty breath. Instead she created feisty, buttery,
adventurous cooks, always diving in to the next possible disaster,
because goddammit, if Julia did it, so could we.

Watched a scene from Shrek 3 and couldn’t stop laughing

Read how Pinocchio escapes by saying multiple negatives

Prince Charming: You! You can’t lie! So tell me puppet… where… is… Shrek?

Pinocchio: Uh. Hmm, well, uh, I don’t know where he’s not

Prince Charming: You’re telling me you don’t know where Shrek is?

Pinocchio: It wouldn’t be inaccurate to assume that I couldn’t exactly not say that it is or isn’t almost partially incorrect.

Prince Charming: So you do know where he is!

Pinocchio: On the contrary. I’m possibly more or less not definitely rejecting the idea that in no way with any amount of uncertainty that I undeniably

Prince Charming: Stop it!

Pinocchio: …do or do not know where he shouldn’t probably be, if that indeed wasn’t where he isn’t. Even if he wasn’t at where I knew he was

[Pigs and Gingerbread Man begin singing]

Pinocchio: That’d mean I’d really have to know where he wasn’t.

This blog is my process of storing words, music and whatever can be stored electronically. Articles which inspire me, surprise me and confuse me.. Music which heals, rocks and mixes my feelings.. All this is stored in an attempt to allow me to revisit and view the path that lay behind me, and understand how i came to be where i am now.. (and that’s, nowhere).. Anyways, i am starting to record snippets from the books i am reading and this will be classified under “Random read”. I might be irregular as i am known to be. But weekly once is a decent expectation which ‘might’ be fulfilled.

The book i am currently reading is “And Another thing”
And this is today’s random read

Guide’s Note
Remembering is generally a two-stage process involving dialogue between the conscious and the subconscious parts of the brain. The subconscious opens proceedings by throwing up the relevant memory, an act which releases a spurt of self congratulatory endorphins.

“Well done, matey,” says the consciousness. “The memory is really useful right now; and i couldn’t remember where i’d put it.”

“You and me, pal” says the subconscious, delighted to have its contribution acknowledged for once. “We’re in this together.”

Then the conscious reviews the memory in its in-tray and sends a message down to the sphincter telling it to prepare for the worst.

“Why did you remind me of this?” it rails against the subconscious. “This is awful. Terrible. I didn’t want to remember this. Why the zark do you think i shoved it to the back of my brain?”

“Thats the last time i help you out,” mutters the subconscious and retreats in the darker sections of itself where nasty thoughts are housed.
“I dont need you,’ it tells itself.”I can make myself another personality out of these things you’ve discarded.’

And so the seeds of schizophrenia are sown with kernels of childhood bullying, neglect, low self esteem and prejudice.

Luckily, Betelgeuseans don’t have much of a subconscious, so that’s all right then.

Why it’s good to take in the good