How interested are you in your relationship?

I have a great aunt of 94 who has never been married, the other day she said to me that of course she has no first hand experience but as far as she could see the reason most marriages failed was because of boredom.

"They say it's because of this or that reason, but I think people just get bored" was how she put it. 

I think she is probably right. In her ted talk Esther Perel reminds us that the important things we look for in long term relationships such as security and certainty are also passion killers.

We have an inbuilt system that reduces the pleasure something affords us over time, we adapt all to quickly to having the things we desire and the initial pleasure wanes with familiarity. This is called the hedonic treadmill and capitalism mercilessly exploits our voracious appetite for pleasure and happiness that consumerism,  material acquisition and new experience gives us.

We can become consumers of people too, caught up in the feelings we ‘get’ from other people and sexual pleasure is one of the biggest pleasure/ happiness drugs of all. But like all drugs the effects can become muted over time. The hedonic treadmill can apply as much to our relationships as to anything else.

On Education and Passion

This weekend I attended the Sunday Times Education Festival at Wellington College. A fantastic event that combined all that is good and forward thinking in education today with speakers and presentations on a vast number of subjects and perspectives. Michael Gove was great, however he stuck blindly to research that says the A levels most desired by business are english, maths, a language, the sciences, geography and history. This rather contradicted many of the presentations, workshops and discussions on what motivates and engages the young, which appeared to be much more the creative arts and as Bob Geldof highlighted, the creative industries have kept this country on the road significantly over the last 30 years as manufacturing has declined. The gold standard A’s also do not teach the other vital skills required by business, the importance of emotional, moral and social skills, a topic that permeated virtually everything.

The idea of a career appears to be dead yet we are in a world dominated by narrow expertise, we have a shortage of engineers and no idea what industries and skills we will need twenty years from now- or even ten. How can the business community of today define the ‘gold standard’ subjects that we should be teaching? Of course core knowledge is essential but how narrow or how broad is certainly up for debate.  Antony Seldon has taken this issue head on and was campaigning strongly for the broader potential of the International Baccalaureate and the relevance of teaching all eight aptitudes from Howard Gardner’s model of multiple intelligences, as well as the ability to be silent and mindful. Teaching how to use knowledge, as much as what knowledge children receive, seemed to be the thread.

I am struck by a big discussion in the ted group on LinkedIn that is asking ‘Our educational system is failing to help students understand their passions and prepare for the right career. How many years did it take for you to find the right career and feel engaged at work? Is there a way to avoid the sometimes 20 year detour to career happiness??

I am surprised this is not in a coaching or positive psychology group and it is quite a pet subject for me for many reasons- my own school experience and the number of midlife clients I get who realise they followed what they thought they should do rather than their heart and passions. There is no wrong and right here, we change as we mature and experience all that life throws at us, good and bad. It is often not the career path per se that is wrong but the way people are interpreting and valuing what they do. I am not sure if this is an education or a general social issue?