Your Big Sources of Meaning In Life Are Dwindling - What Will You Do About It?

A mathematical analysis that will mess with your head.

Amid the frenzy of being a working parent, I've embraced a simple rule: if my three daughters ask me to play, I do everything possible to say yes. They peek into my office, eyes wide with anticipation, and softly suggest an adventure, “Dad, can we just… bake cookies, find a watering hole, climb fallen logs in the woods, or get some soup dumplings?”

I pause my data analyses, writing, or endless stream of email requests, and with a flourish, I spin my Herman Miller chair¹ around and declare, “Adulting is officially over for now, let’s go!”

This rule wasn't my invention. It was a gift from a wiser parent, and I was persuaded to adopt it. Now, I pass this torch to you, dear reader, with a single data-driven figure that I hope offers inspiration. Be prepared, though, as this graph will likely stir bittersweet feelings of impending loss, echoing sentiments expressed by

Susan Cain

:

The Painful Data

Take a moment to explore a decade's worth of data on how Americans, aged 15 to 80, allocate their time daily. Pay special attention to adults between 20 and 50 years old - prime working years.

What strikes me profoundly is the data on spending time with children. My three daughters are the core of my existence. During their childhood, no one else commands more of my time. For me, this has been the case between the ages of 30 and 50. The precious moments we share are already dwindling rapidly. In just a few years, these experiences will be cut in half from their peak when I was around 40.

Every year I get bombarded my media outlets about the science of gratitude for Thanksgiving articles - in the Wall Street Journal (here), Forbes (here), US News & World Report (here), and the Washingtonian (here). For me, I can distill my best advice down to a single tip.

Your time with children is precious. Do not make the common mistake of waiting until work slows down to start saying YES when they offer a social invitation to join them.

But this isn’t just about children. This is also about friendships. Scroll back up to what I refer to as The Graph of Bittersweet Loss. For most adults, their peak friendship period ended at age 17!!!!! From there, it is a fast, systematic decline as your world gets bombarded with work, romantic partners, and self-generated solitary confinement. At the gym. Mowing lawns, again and again. Cleaning garages, again and again. And if we’re radically transparent, the inertia of not wanting to travel anywhere due to a bit of fatigue and desire for ease.

Provocations

I'm here to push you into being a statistical outlier in The Graph of Bittersweet Loss. Refuse to line up with dots reflecting the average American. Call your friends more often. Even if your brain reminds you of all the unfinished work sitting on that office desk, visit them periodically and plan annual adventures together. You have fewer Mondays left than you think.

If you have kids, don't wait until they graduate high school to lament how much you miss them, complete with social media posts of their younger years. Fill your days and nights with such a vast reservoir of memories that there's a sense of completion when they go forth into the world as adults.

Add some social rules to hold loosely in your daily existence. For instance, I just returned from a week-long trip with my daughter Raven, where we visited the first college she was accepted into, LSU. As we planned our agenda, including a side trip to New Orleans, we designed a few travel requirements:

1. Leave early enough to get lost in serendipitous adventures with strange characters, food, and location-specific stops. In this case, we squeezed in a swamp airboat tour with wild alligator sightings.

2. Use local transportation to absorb the culture shock. We traveled by trolley car as often as possible to get our fair share of beignets and seafood gumbo.

Fight back against time poverty and time confetti by being time affluent. Take control of what you do and when. It sounds simple, and in a way, it is.

Stop delaying happiness and meaningful living for some indeterminate future period. There will always be items on your to-do list. On the top line, shove in fully present moments with friends and children. Then do it. Now.

If you found value in this issue, please support me in 3 ways:

• Share this on social media and send it to friends;

• Leave a ❤️ and comment;

• Subscribe (with benefits such as the chat room and 200+ article archive).

If you become a Paid Subscriber, expect an email this weekend with the next Provoked Zoom call on Friday 11/29/24 at 3pm EST.

---

Todd B. Kashdan is an author of several books including The Upside of Your Dark Side (Penguin) and The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively (Avery/Penguin) and Professor of Psychology and Leader of The Well-Being Laboratory at George Mason University.

Read Past Issues Here Including:

1. A gift to myself for signing a contract with Penguin to author The Upside of Your Dark Side with my favorite coach on earth, Robert Biswas-Diener (recently anointed in the top 50 on Earth - here). The Aeron Chair has saved my lower back, regularly allowing me to write in flow for 8 straight hours. As of this writing it is 25% off, so just enjoy if you can - here. Of note, this is not a referral program and there is no conflict of interest. I just want to witness great people producing great content in great chairs.