Career and Children

Your assignment is to explore the inner conflict between your unique purpose in life and your natural need to belong to the group. Like Diane Fossey, do you want to study gorillas in the wild, but find yourself stuck in the city working at a job you hate? We are only partially joking here.

Every now and again you're surprised by something you learn about something you encounter or even work with every day. Maybe you have found that effect in the courses of Women's Happiness Magazine.

In the past couple of weeks I’ve had one friend get surprised by a layoff from work, a second one surprised by a sudden demand by his girlfriend that they move in together, and a third friend get surprised by his wife’s own sudden feelings - realizing after seven years of marriage that she wants a divorce.  These are the surprises of life, and what matters is what we do next. We can’t control the world, the random conditions of the environment, or human mistakes, but we can jump on them and correct our direction.

It's not a difficulty for every woman to make major decisions without much reflective concern, and not much at all to most when it comes to minor decisions. Yet, for those who do have their reasons for hand-wringing - to date, or not, to marry, or not, to break up or divorce, or not, to change jobs, cities, or whole careers - ambivalence, confusion, worry or overwhelm about life's choices are among the most painful experience a woman can go through. These can even be ever-present sources of inner conflict long after an irreversible decision has been made.