{"id":11701,"date":"2011-12-22T17:12:51","date_gmt":"2011-12-22T17:12:51","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-12-25T19:12:11","modified_gmt":"2011-12-25T19:12:11","slug":"Why-Money-Won-t-Make-You-Happy-And-Other-Lessons-From-America-s-Great-Depression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=11701","title":{"rendered":"Why Money Won’t Make You Happy. And Other Lessons From America’s Great Depression"},"content":{"rendered":"

It may seem that times are tough right now, but there is a generation of Americans who had things worse<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve been through war, poverty, some the Resistance, some the Holocaust,\u201d says Karl Pillemer, a professor of gerontology at Cornell University. \u201cMany of them grew up in extreme poverty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pillemer noticed that older people have higher life satisfaction, a perceived better quality of life, and are better able to regulate their emotions than younger people. He decided to talk to this group about what they had learnt in life. \u201cIf we\u2019re living through economic hard times,\u201d he said, \u201cwhy wouldn\u2019t we want to learn from people who lived through the Great Depression?\u201d<\/p>\n

He published the results in \u201c30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans,\u201d<\/a> which came out last month. Twelve hundred people were included in the study, adding up to about 50,000 years of career experience. These are people who remember a time of cleaner air, cleaner water supplies, and closely knit communities, as well as systematic sexism and racism and economic collapse. I spoke to Pillemer on the phone last week, and here are some lessons that emerged from our conversation, about life and work.<\/p>\n

1. Do what you love<\/strong>
\nIf you\u2019re in a job that you detest, get out of it. The people Pillemer interviewed had a radical approach, he said. \u201cIf you\u2019re not waking up in the morning at least relatively enthusiastic about going to work, you shouldn\u2019t be an extra month in that. That\u2019s because of the preciousness of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Do your best<\/strong>
\n\u201cThey argue that, even if it\u2019s McDonald\u2019s, people should learn as much as they can about the field, immerse themselves in the job enthusiastically,\u201d Pillemer says. \u201cSo even if you can\u2019t get out right away, you get something out of it. So the second piece of advice is realistic. They say, \u2018Look, it\u2019s possible you\u2019ll be stuck in a bad job but how do you make the most of it?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

3. Emotional intelligence trumps technical skill<\/strong>
\nDevelop interpersonal skills and you\u2019re more likely to get on with people \u2014 and get ahead.<\/p>\n

4. If at first you don\u2019t succeed, and then again, you don\u2019t succeed \u2026 Try something new<\/strong>
\n\u201cThey\u2019re not into this idea of \u2018If at first you don\u2019t succeed, then try and try again\u2019 when it comes to work,\u201d Pillemer explains. \u201cThey actually think that if you\u2019re exploring work, try something for a couple of years and if it doesn\u2019t work then try something else. It all comes back to your lifetime being extremely precious and making the most of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

5. Say \u2018Yes!\u2019<\/strong>
\n\u201cA very strong lesson is the importance of saying \u2018Yes\u2019 to things at work. They feel like if people think they can\u2019t do something, they\u2019ll even pass up a promotion because they feel it\u2019s too much work or refuse to be transferred \u2013 yet almost always you regret not saying yes. As one man told me say yes unless you have an overwhelmingly compelling reason to say no.\u201d<\/p>\n

continue reading at forbes<\/a>
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It may seem that times are tough right now, but there is a generation of Americans who had things worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"njaiyo","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/255e26fc52858afad234c2c1d44c946e16c565fd0ef5615b0c1caa793897759d?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"It may seem that times are tough right now, but there is a generation of Americans who had things worse.","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["News"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":120,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":3,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"njaiyo","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=6"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/255e26fc52858afad234c2c1d44c946e16c565fd0ef5615b0c1caa793897759d?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"News<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}