College graduates are often told: "follow your passion," do "what you love," what you were "meant to do," or "make your dreams come true." Two-thirds think they're going find a job that allows them to change the world, half within five years. Yikes.

 

This sets young people up to fail. The truth is that the vast majority of us will not be employed in a job that is both our lifelong passion and a world-changer; that's just not the way our global economy is. So it's ok to set your sights just a tad below occupational ecstasy¹. Just find a job that you like. Use that job to help you have a full life with lots of good things and pleasure and helping² others and stuff. A great life is pretty good, even if it's not perfect.

 

 

Americans put far too much emphasis on finding Mr. or Ms. Right and getting married. We think this will bring us happiness. In fact, however, both psychological well-being³ and health are more strongly related to friendship. If you have good friends, you'll be less likely to get the common cold, less likely to die from cancer, recover better from the loss of a spouse⁴, and keep your mental acuity⁵ as you age. You'll also feel more capable of facing life's challenges, be less likely to feed depressed⁶ or commit suicide, and be happier in old age. Having happy friends increases your chance of being happy as much as an extra $145,500 a year does. So, make friends!

 

 

Single people, especially women, are stigmatized⁷（污辱，指责） in our society: we're all familiar with the image of a sad, lonely woman eating ice cream with her cats in her pajamas⁸（睡衣） on Saturday night. But about 45 percent of US adults aren't married and around one in seven lives alone.

 

This might be you. Research shows that young people's expectations about their marital⁹ status (e.g., the desire to be married by 30 and have kids by 32) have little or no relationship to what actually happens to people. So, go with the flow.

 

And, if you're single, you're in good company. Single people spend more time with friends, volunteer more, and are more involved in their communities than married people. Never-married and divorced women are happier, on average, than married women. So, don't buy into the myth of the miserable¹⁰ singleton（独身）.

 

 

If you do get married, keep going with the flow. Relationship satisfaction, financial security, and happy kids are more strongly related to flexibility¹² in the face of life's challenges than any particular way of organizing families. The most functional¹³ families are ones that can bend. So partnering with someone who thinks that one partner should support their families and the other should take responsibility for the house and children is a recipe for disaster. So is being equally rigid¹⁴ about non-traditional divisions of labor¹⁵. It's okay to have ideas about how to organize your family but your best bet for happiness is to be flexible.

 

 

Our current image of the American Dream revolves¹⁶ around homeownership, and buying a home is often taken for granted as a stage on the path to full-fledge adulthood¹⁷. But the ideal of universal home ownership was born in the 1950s. It's a rather new idea.

 

With such a short history, it's funny that people often insist that buying a house is a fool-proof investment and the best way to secure retirement¹⁸. In fact, buying a house may not be the best choice for you. The mortgage may be less than rent, but there are also taxes, insurance, and the increasingly common Home Owners Association (HOA) fees. You may someday sell the house for more than you bought it but, if you paid interest on a mortgage, you also paid far more than the sale price. You have freedom from a landlord, but may discover your HOA is just as controlling, or worse. And then there's the headache: renting relieves you from the stress of being responsible for repairs. It also offers a freedom of movement that you might cherish.

 

So, think carefully about whether buying or renting is a better fit for your finances, lifestyle, and future goals. 

 

 

One father had this to say about children: "They're a huge source of joy, but they turn every other source of joy to shit." In fact, having children correlates with both an increased sense of purpose in life and a long-lasting decrease in individual and marital happiness. Having kids means spending a lot of your short life and limited income on one source of joy. You have only so much time and money and there are lots of ways to find satisfaction, pleasure, and meaning in this life. Consider all your options.

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