Mythbusting

Lately, I think I've been feeling a bit of an inferiority complex, I think. I keep running into these highly accomplished and achieving women: women with multiple advanced degrees, successful careers, families, etc. In comparison, I look like a bum whose doing nothing in her life. Not that I want more degrees, or my own business or anything. I don't think I'd even notice except I'm job hunting, which is enough to give anyone an inferiority complex and puts you in 'competition mode'.*

Along with this, there's also been so a lot of talk about women's equality in the news, with a lot of talk about women having it all. I've thought a lot about that phrase, 'having it all', and hobnobbing with these incredible and accomplished women has got me thinking about it again. I've come to the conclusion that "having it all" is a myth. And so today, I'm going to do some myth-busting surrounding the implications of women having it all.

Myth #1: Men have it all.
Talking about women's equality and whether they can have it all automatically implies that men have it all. I beg to differ on that score. Men do not have it all. They make a choice to work to provide for their family, and the trade-off is they miss a lot while they are at work. I know there are a variety of reasons men do this, but I think it would be very wrong to assume that they don't miss being home with their families. Men don't really talk about it, but maybe they should talk about the sacrifices they make by having a career. We'd at least have a more complete picture of thing.

Myth #2: All women want to have it all.
All these articles about women's rights and women having it all make me feel like a backwards hick from Idaho** because I don't want to have it all. I don't worry about being seen as the equal of men. In some ways, I hope I'm never equal to a man. I'm NOT a man, I'm a woman, and if being their equal means becoming like them, I'll pass. I don't want a career and a family and a cause and to be the main housekeeper. Maybe I'm deficient in my womanly qualities, but I can't multitask. Except for reading and walking at the same time. Otherwise, I'll take one thing at a time, thank you very much.

Myth #3: "all" is 100% good stuff.
I work a full-time job right now, and I can tell you that I don't know what the fuss is all about. I love my work, but there is a lot of stress and tension and frustration that comes with a job. You have to deal with bosses, co-workers, bureaucracy, angry clientele, and all sorts of other issues. You have to get up and be at the same place everyday. Sometimes, you get stuck in a job that becomes a huge rut with no opportunity for growth. Not all jobs are secure jobs.

And being a family woman isn't always a picnic, either. Kids don't listen to you, you have to bathe, dress, and feed them. They get sick, they whine, they fight. Husbands don't always read your mind. Not that there aren't also fantastic rewards to family life, and work for that matter. But I think we aren't giving young women the full picture--having it all isn't glamorous. All means all--the good, the bad, and the ugly, and they should be prepared for that.

Myth #4: Women (or anyone for that matter) can have it all alone.
No matter what anyone tries to tell you, no one is a self-made human being. The woman who has it all comes across as an independent person who doesn't need anyone else to get there. This is a lie. People need people, and as much as the world is trying to deny it, women need men and men need women. I have never felt as complete as a woman as I did when I was dating a good young man. As a woman alone, I will never have it all. But with a husband by my side, all is a real possibility.

Myth #5: It is actually possible to have it all.
I'm not actually sure what is meant by 'all', but I have a feeling that 'all' doesn't actually exist. At least not all at once. From what I've seen, having a career requires sacrificing aspects of family life and family life requires sacrifices, too. There are trade-offs in the decisions we make. Now, to be clear: the trade-off isn't automatically good or bad, it just is. That is the reality. But any trade-off means you are subtracting from 'all'. It's something to consider.

Of course, this isn't taking time into account. We focus so much on "have it all" that we never talk about "when". I don't think there is any one 'when'--when can be different for each of us. But I don't think it would hurt to add it to the discussion.

Myth #6. Having it all determines my worth.
I mentioned earlier feeling inferior. But dear self-with-an-inferiority-complex: Your worth has nothing to do with having it all, with degrees or salaries or promotions or number of kids or marital status. Your worth comes from the fact that you am a daughter of God. Don't ever base your worth on 'having it all', because you will never have enough without the Lord. He loves you, and that is the best 'all' there is.


***Note: This post is based purely on common sense and the experience and understanding of the author and has absolutely no scientific basis whatsoever, although if you find scientific basis, feel free to let me know. Also, if I totally missed the boat on what everyone means by 'having it all', well, please, do educate me. But since this is my personal blog, I can still make the argument based on my own definition. So there.***

*This is one of the many issues I have with job hunting as it takes place in the US. But that is a diatribe for another day. 
**This is only half true. I am from Idaho, but I am not backwards. Or a hick. Maybe not a city slicker, but definitely not a hick.

Continuing Education

The nature of my job is such that I don't always have to give 100% of my attention to the task at hand, so I can listen to things while I work. Most of my co-workers listen to music while they work on things, but I listen to podcasts. This creates a small problem when people walk by and start talking to me because, unlike with music, I can't jump out and jump back in.

One day, a co-worker asked what I was listening to, and I named the podcast. She said, "Wow. So you're actually, like, learning about stuff. You must be really well-informed." I don't know how informed I am, but I do learn a lot. Proof of this? The other day I saw this comic strip and while I didn't know everything on there, five of them were things I knew about from podcasts, which is five more that I knew than I would have.

So what do I listen to at work? Here is my podcast list:

BBC Documentaries
BBC Witness
BBC's More or Less
Freakonomics
BBC's Friday Night Comedy
BBC's Comedy of the Week
Hello Internet
Intelligence Squared and Intelligence Squared US
Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me!
NPR's Story of the Day
Invisibilia
Radiolab
TED Talks
Stuff You Should Know
Stuff You Missed in History
and NPR's On the Media

My great accomplishment of 2014 was to actually catch up on podcast episodes. I am now current (and unfortunately, that sometimes means I don't have very many to listen to at work. Thank goodness for audiobooks!)

One way or another, whether from podcasts or from what I'm working on (I'm an archivist--finding out new information is inevitable), I am constantly learning something new. Just the way I like it.

Any excuse for Pi(e)

Welcome to this historic Pi Day (3/14/15...). In honor of the occasion I am eating pie. For breakfast. At 9:26. (Yes, that last bit is a little planned, I confess. But the rest of it is all about whimsy.)

Happy Pi day, world.

Rights or Right?

The other day, on the way home from work, a passenger on the bus dropped his hat and another passenger picked it up and ran to the door of the bus to give it to passenger 1. I had been feeling a bit self-absorbed, tired, and a bit unfriendly towards the world at large, and hadn't felt overly favorable to my fellow riders. Not that I'd been rude or anything, more that I just ignored them. But I had 'summed them up', I guess you could say. I wasn't necessarily judging them or anything, because I really wasn't invested enough to form an opinion. But I did survey them as I got on the bus and found my corner to hermit up in.

Anyway, when passenger two returned the hat, I was shaken from my self-indulgent stupor. I kept feeling like I should be doing something to help, but it doesn't really take that many people to return a hat. And the first passenger thanked him, I saw a totally different passenger one from the one I had summed up previously. I had observed certain things, and wondered about them in the context of my own experience, and then dismissed it all from my mind, but that small, insignificant interaction gave me a chance to see beyond the surface and shift from the immune human being on a bus to a participant in humanity, and I was incredibly grateful for the experience.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not a callous person, I try very hard not to limit people to what I can gather from a brief glimpse of them on a bus (hardly a reliable way to learn someone's character!). I'm a normal human being who is trying her best to do some good in the world, and I'm not saying that you should run out and meet everyone on the bus or anything. What stood out to me about this incident was what a difference kindness makes in how we perceive each other, and how we feel about each other.

That same day, I had listened to a podcast, a debate that centered around freedom of speech and our right to said freedom. And as I listened, I just kept feeling dismayed at how much more concern everyone feels about their rights than they do about doing what is right--what is right being what is kind, what is respectful, what shows understanding and courtesy towards someone else whether we agree or not. Basically, what is right being the golden rule (a very undervalued principle!).

I read headlines and I feel like there is so much anger everywhere, people all fighting for a piece of some non-existent pie, everyone being against everyone else, loud voices, defensiveness, and just so much anger. I'm not qualified to give an opinion on whether the anger is justified or anything. There are a lot of problems in the world, there's a lot of unfairness, and I feel like a little kid who doesn't know enough to handle big problems. But it does seem like a lot of the arguing and anger and discord stems from a world more concerned about getting their own than trying to treat other people the way they deserve. And I think of that act of kindness. One person tried to be kind, and suddenly the strangers involved became real. I saw myself in them--my desire to make others smile, to help others. One of them reminded me of my dad. I was reminded of my own gratitude when people do small things to help. When you see yourself in others, it is hard to feel indifferent to them. It's the golden rule at work.

So what is my point? I don't know if I know. But I think of that debate about freedom of speech, and the people arguing that they should be able to say whatever they want, whenever they want, with impunity. Well, maybe you'll think I'm naive, but it seems to me that if we stopped worrying so much about what we are legally entitled to say or do, and thought more about whether we ought to say or do it--whether it is the right thing to do, even if we have a right to do it--the world might run just a little more smoothly. What say we go be kind?