intellectual properties

please me have no regrets

much related to my post about affluenza and redefining the “American Dream”:

i spend a lot of time pondering the ways i spend my time. should i be working harder? should i be “doing something with myself” besides running around like a motley fool, participating in charades and games of hide and seek and ruminating endlessly about who i should be camping with at burning man and how might i be able to get a job with the circus?

apparently not. according to this study (download the PDF for the full study- quite interesting, with lots of charts and graphs), i’m doing it right. living it up. older generations regret working too hard and not playing enough. as older generations age and realize their regrets, “wasted youth”, previously defined as partying too hard and sleeping too much when you should have been “building your career”, has been slowly redefined as sitting in cubicles in uncomfortable clothing waiting for the clock to hit 5 and not exploring the world or partying ENOUGH.

“This article proposes that supposedly farsighted (”hyperopic”) choices of virtue over vice evoke increasing regret over time. We demonstrate that greater temporal separation between a choice and its assessment enhances the regret (or anticipated regret) of virtuous decisions (e.g., choosing work over pleasure). We argue that this finding reflects the differential impact of time on the affective determinants of self-control regret. In particular, we show that greater temporal perspective attenuates emotions of indulgence guilt but accentuates wistful feelings of missing out on the pleasures of life.”

in short: in retrospect, as time goes on, you will regret not having enough fun more than you will regret not working hard enough.

when jay and i were in michigan in may, we had a great talk with his mom and stepfather in which both of them agreed that living life to it’s fullest WHILE YOU CAN is much more important than goals pertaining to money, real estate, or professional kudos. while many parents might be dismayed at their 30 year old children being unmarried, childless, unwealthy, and uninterested in playing society’s games, both of them expressed that they were just happy that we were happy, and that most importantly, we have no regrets about the paths we’ve chosen. it was really great to hear them say that, particularly considering some of our differences in faith and lifestyle, and also so that i don’t feel like i’m just convincing myself that i’m doing the right thing so that i can keep on doing what i feel like doing. outsider affirmation is very nice to hear.

i wonder if there is a cultural shift going on with our generation in thinking this way, after seeing our parents and grandparents work decades thinking they would be happily retired only to find that come up short-changed, or if people from all generations throughout time have felt this as a personal shift once adolesence was gone for good and my crew is just starting to experience it now in our 30s. this also leads me to wonder: are “mid-life crises” coming a decade earlier now that we’ve all seen what’s coming?

i feel badly for some of my friends who seem to be lost in a high stakes game of “keeping up with joneses”, rolling the dice with mortgages and investments and half-baked marriages, spending way too many days exhausted and nights on the couch and only allowing themselves 2 or 3 weeks of vacation every year.

this is not to say that i think EVERYONE should give up their day job and join the circus. of course not. i take my day job pretty seriously and enjoy having a bit of professional satisfaction out of having my income be the result of doing work i believe in. but, regardless of your lifestyle, if you’re unhappy with your life choices, if you feel like you’re MISSING OUT, don’t let societal pressure keep you where you are. be responsible about your choices, but allow AMPLE room and time for fun, even if it means letting some of those other “responsibilities” slide for a bit.

the true American Dream, after all, is to just simply be happy.

with that said, have a GREAT 4th of july weekend, and celebrate all your american freedoms to the fullest possible extent. i know i will.