The Illusive "Happiness"

The other day, a friend sent me an article in New York Times by the sharp-tongued Maureen Dowd “ Blue is the New Black” (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/opinion/20dowd.html?em). She talked about how women are getting more and more unhappy, even as they have more choices in life and achieve more. She quoted Arianna Huffington, “It doesn’t matter what their marital status is, how much money they make, whether or not they have children, their ethnic background, or the country they live in. Women around the world are in a funk.” To summarize, “We’re happy to have our newfound abundance of choices, even if those choices end up making us unhappier. A paradox indeed.”

I immediately forwarded this article to other friends of mine, and received quick responses.

“Happiness is reality divided by expectation. It is certainly true that the 'want it all' mentality of modern professional women has raised the expectation significantly, hence decreased the happiness level. It is true, on average, for an older man to get a young date, than vice versa, but I don't how much that helps happiness. The caveat is obvious - reality is partially a function of your drive/effort/life goal, which are functions of expectation. Otherwise, we should all be the obliviously blissful half-naked Hindu monks, begging and meditating…” – This message is from a male friend, to which a friend who knows me extremely well said, “hmm, that applies to you pretty well. You are less happy than those who don’t have much but have lower expectations, but on the other hand, had you not set up these high expectations, perhaps you would not have been able to accomplish much.”

And as if to respond to that, I got a response from another friend, who has had it all – Ivy League education, thriving corporate career, a family with two kids, stable income, great health, etc: “Maybe one of the solutions is not to be a perfectionist but an optimalist -- as Tal Ben-Shahar (Harvard Class of 96) has been preaching (http://www.talbenshahar.com/). Too bad he did not start teaching the 'Happiness' course at Harvard till 2006, many years after we were there. I just flipped through his book, The Pursuit of Perfect (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Pursuit-of-Perfect/Tal-Ben-Shahar/e/9780071608824). Many points are common sense, but using examples from his own experience and perspective has made it more authentic and more relevant than the usual self-help books.”

In the midst of this recession, quite a few talented professional women I know are having trouble finding jobs or jobs they like, even though they actually do not need to work for the sake of money. That, in itself should perhaps make one less nervous, but the fact that they are used to the idea of accomplishment, purpose and financial independence has made them feel even worse about not having a job right now. Professional women in general encounter greater obstacles at work, which I can certainly understand. One friend wrote back in frustration, “Yes, not only is a woman's life tougher than a man's, but women are easily blamed everywhere. In this society, a woman's weakness is obvious, but women's efforts and contributions are hardly visible and appreciated! Life is a ugly mess, and we need to keep some dreams for ourselves in order to survive.”

Another one wrote, “Nowadays women are taking on many more tasks, including parenting, career, hobbies...No wonder we feel more stressed out than men, since we tend to care about kids (and even the career) much more than men. Sometimes new Moms feel so torn apart between the baby and the job that they have emotional breakdowns. But please remember this is what every career woman goes through and like most other cases in life, the effort we make today will pay off in the future for sure! One obvious advantage we gain is the respect and financial power at home and in society, which in the old time women could not enjoy.”

Still another friend wrote, “too many choices, too many responsibilities.”

Of course, my very scientific husband is always seeking to understand better, as if it’s a biological or mathematical question, “Now that I know how difficult happiness is to achieve, I will try extra hard to make you happy! There is one thing about the article that is unexplained, though. If women with children are unhappier than those without, then why were women in the past happier than women now, when they had many more babies in the past? Is it because women now see children as interfering with their goals, when in the past having children was the goal? Is this true in Europe as well?”

The discussions on happiness will perhaps never end. When I mentioned to my new live-in nanny that a friend got into serious post-partum depression, she was confused, “What is depression? Why was she depressed?” In her mind, if one is healthy, can make a living and has family around her, she should be really happy. I explained that it was a mental disease, but I could tell that she still did not quite understand it. Last weekend, when I drove her to Ranch 99 to buy groceries (she has a great love of supermarkets where she would spend a long time picking out the best AND the cheapest stuff, while I impatiently wait for her to finish), I made a wrong turn and ended up driving across the long San Mateo Bridge. It was a beautiful and sunny day, and the view from the bridge was fabulous. She was happy as a bird, “Oh I love to see the ocean. Thanks so much for making the wrong turn. I have barely worked for you for two days, and you have already taken me to see the sea.”

Now that was perhaps real, authentic, undiluted happiness.

Pity the Hearts of All the Mothers

The fact that I have written nothing in my blog in the past three months does not mean that I have been that busy. But it does mean that my mind has been completely preoccupied, with my son. Now I understand viscerally how true that Chinese saying is – “Pity the Hearts of All the Parents”. Actually to be more accurate, it should be changed to “Pity the Hearts of All the Mothers”. No one except a mother can understand how it feels to love a baby and put his welfare above all. That, in itself, can become such a debilitating obsession.

After the first few days of euphoria following Winston’s birth, I have been worried over his various little problems here and there – first it’s the baby acne, and then eczema, and then his stuffy nose, and then finally he’s diagnosed with acid reflux, which has trigged a variety of symptoms, all of which are much more painful for me to watch than for him to experience. I found that I could not bear to see him crying so much, as I myself would burst into tears in that case. Sometimes he was in a good mood, but hearing his stuffy nose already broke my heart. My mother told me that I really had to stop fretting over him, as he’s just fine. Other friends have been telling me the same thing, but I stubbornly believed that they were not observant enough to notice all the discomforts that Winston has been experiencing. Sure enough, after his 2-month checkup, I found that he looked ill. He was having difficulty swallowing and he did not have an appetite. So of course we took him to the pediatrician, who said that he had an ear infection. I felt so guilty, as I never heard that a 2-month old baby could have ear infections. I kept searching for answers in books and on internet as to how to fix his stuffy nose, or whether or not there are a lot of babies who have the same thing, so that I won’t feel particularly bad about my mothering skills. It was so all-consuming that I felt no energy or desire to do anything else.

Right now, as I sit in my office, I am trying very hard not to worry over him, as the new nanny is taking care of him. But I keep wondering if the nanny will treat him the same way when my mom is no longer at home to watch over her. Will she be the same when no one is around to monitor her? When a friend tried to tell me that the worst will not happen, I argued that there are many things that the nanny might do or might not do that could do harm to him, although they are not necessarily the worst that can happen to him. Perhaps in my friend’s eyes, I am simply hopelessly obsessed.

Sometimes I wonder if my obsession with Winston will do him harm, as maybe a more relaxed me will be a better mom to him. Other times I wonder if I stop being so vigilant, perhaps I will let bad things happen, ignore symptoms of a disease, or allow a bad nanny to stay. Michael of course loves Winston very much, but he does not fret over him. While I have always understood that men and women are different, it’s only after having Winston that I have come to realize how different. Women become mothers when they have babies, whereas men remain the same as before. It does not mean that they do not love the baby, but the presence of the baby does not fundamentally transform them.

Baby Winston at 3 Months

Winston loves people, and he loves walking all over them too:

He certainly prefers that to crawling:

He also likes foot massages:

and washing his hands:

If you're looking for photos of Winston, click here.

Life and Death

Yesterday was a day of tragic news, as the world learned of the death of both Michael Jackson and Farah Fawcett, the former completely a surprise, and the latter was expected for a while due to her battle with cancer. Michael Jackson was only 50 years old, and Farah Fawcett 62. Still, as I read the news, I could not help but think to myself, “life is so transient and vulnerable to so many things – illness, accidents, etc – that it’s a wonder anyone can live to old age.”

As I look at my newborn son, I have started to worry about everything and anything. Short of protecting him all the time, I feel that he might be hurt. He’s at the beginning of his life, and he really does have his whole life ahead of him. But what if I am not careful about protecting him against all the germs, viruses, evils and disasters of the world? And how could I possibly do that, short of quitting everything else in life?

Then I got an e-mail from a dear friend who has had three kids by now. She wrote, “There will be endless number of things to worry about, and it's very hard to pursue perfection. Essentially, you don't realize how messy and conflicted and beautiful a life is until now. Right now it's total immersion in the baby and you might feel some loss of your own identity, but soon it will actually expand and reinforce your idea of self.”

Death has always frightened me terribly. Now that I am holding my baby boy in my arms and feeling his life, I find it hard to believe that a life so vivid and irrepressible could ever expire. As my friend said, we don’t realize how complicated and yet how beautiful life is until we create a life ourselves. Yes, we all will die some day. But part of us will live on, through our babies, who will get old eventually as well. But for now, they look like that they possess a rather eternal vivacity. They look like that they will just keep growing, thriving and living on forever.

And that’s of course a mother’s wish for her son.

Maternal Love

It has been a week since I gave birth to my son Winston. Prior to that, I had always wondered what people meant by saying that "it's the most wonderful thing that could happen in your life". I literally could not imagine.

Now I do understand, although I lack the appropriate words to describe why. When I first held him in my arms after a very long labor, I marveled at how little he was, and also how dependent and helpless he was. While he did not exist in my life up until that moment, once he was in my arms, I felt that my life could not possibly be complete without him. Despite my wishes to raise him with discipline, I now understand why it is so easy for mothers to spoil their kids. Maternal love is supposedly the most selfless kind of love, and now I realize that in a way, while it is the purest kind of love, it is not necessarily selfless. - A baby is literally a vital part of a mother. Therefore, it is no wonder that she would do everything for her baby, including sacrificing herself if necessary. The genetic programming definitely works here, as a biologist friend commented when I told him my feelings about Winston.

Yes, indeed Winston is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened in my life. I realize that I will probably be an overprotective mother, as I have already started worrying about everything about him.

I also understand how my own mother felt about me when I was born. Without Winston, I don't think I could claim to truly appreciate how my mother has loved me and my sister. Perhaps one can only understand maternal love when she is on the giving end, as opposed to merely the receiving end.

After Attending San Francisco Opera's Production of "Tosca"

When Michael and I were living in Boston, at least twice a year, we would take a weekend trip from Boston to New York to visit friends. We always had such a grand time, going sightseeing or visiting museums, eating out, playing cards until 2 or 3 am, as well as to squeeze in a show or two. Sometimes we would attend a concert at New York Philharmonic; sometimes we would watch a play, such as the obnoxious playwright Tom Stoppard’s “The Invention of Love”. One New Year’s eve, we had great south Indian food for lunch and saw “Proof” starring Mary Louise Parker in the afternoon. On another trip back from New York, Michael suggested dropping by unannounced to visit a friend living in Providence. We were so amused to see how surprised she was when she opened the door. That was back when we engaged often in such “spontaneous living”…. I am amazed that I still remember all these details of our New York trips!

We only started attending operas fairly regularly after we saw the Metropolitan Opera’s production of “Tosca” (the first opera we saw at the Met) – we sat so far from the stage that we needed binoculars to see the singers’ faces, only to realize that it’s best not to see them (hint – it takes great lung capacity to sing those arias, and generally skinny people do not have huge lung capacity). Since then, we have not seen any operas that rival the Met Opera’s magnificent productions, in Boston, San Diego or Los Angeles.

This past week, Michael and I attended San Francisco Opera’s performance of “Tosca” at the War Memorial Opera House. Maybe it’s because I was paying more attention, or maybe it’s because opera is considered a “higher” form of art than say, ballet, I had the impression that most of the people at the opera were not only quite old, but also very “distinguished-looking”. Of course, it is not surprising to see more old people at the operas – opera is not exactly as popular or “modern” as “American Idols”! People were dressed much more nicely at the opera than at ballets or other regular concerts – I felt really dowdy looking so heavily pregnant, and missed the days when I was as skinny as these other women wearing evening gowns. When the opera was over, quite a few limos were waiting outside to pick up old ladies gingerly walking in their high heels (yes, they were still wearing high heels).

Perhaps our tastes in music have got more selective – I remember being moved to tears by the arias sung by Mario towards the end of the opera at the Met, but this time, both Michael and I thought that overall “Tosca” was not even one of Puccini’s best. In addition, while we are not opera aficionados, we can still tell that the opera singers were not as good as the Met Opera ones. Don’t get me wrong – they still are very good, but their voices just did not grab me the way a truly great opera singer could.

Come to think of it, these traditional art forms such as opera and ballet are facing challenges from the new forms of art and entertainment every day, enhanced by technology and rendered easily accessible by internet. Michael pointed out how the seats at opera houses are so small and uncomfortable compared to the stadium seats in movie theaters. Well, I suppose that cannot be changed easily, and nor can opera houses afford to give people any more space without charging a real fortune. In a way, implicitly we are asked to put up with a lot of inconveniences to enjoy these traditional art forms – the price to pay for “acting” cultured. Being so much bigger and so much less mobile these days, I definitely find the seats a lot more uncomfortable than just a few weeks ago! I thought to myself , “I used to not even notice such things, but now I notice everything. I must be getting old!”

Leaving the War Memorial Opera House on this recent Tuesday night, I noticed how empty the streets were, with the exception of the limos and the taxis that waited outside to pick up passengers. I recall, somewhat nostalgically, that in Manhattan, when we got out of the Met Opera at close to midnight, the city was still bustling with energy, traffic, people and neon lights, even in the dead of the winter. Once we even went to get hot and spicy Korean food at close to mid-night, and it was downright fabulous and intoxicating.

Come to think of it, the Korean food (if reproduced) might not taste so amazing today, because by now we have had many exciting experiences that the bar for excitement has got higher and higher. Alternatively, it is possibly due to the fact that as we get older, we get more jaded. Back then, the ability to see a Met Opera followed by mid-night Bibimbap with freshly made kimchee could make us giddy beyond imagination. But it was mostly internal rather than external factors that have contributed to our fond memories. Back then, we were just so easily excited, amazed, surprised, and impressed, not to mention the fact that we were impoverished graduate students who had not seen the world yet.

Therefore, to be fair, perhaps the Met Opera was not really so much superior to the San Francisco Opera. The difference might be entirely in our minds. We remember the Met Opera as so much more lively, beautiful and memorable, perhaps because we see ourselves in those days through a certain filter, hopeful, energetic, innocent and beautifully young.

The Bay Area Housing Market

Compared to a friend of mine who has kept an active blog full of pictures of places she visited in Europe (she’s currently working in England), my blog has consisted of nothing but rather boring and mundane activities, such as watching movies (I just watched “Angels and Demons”, which was downright silly but I enjoyed it nonetheless as it was like visiting Rome again), going to operas and ballets (I have already written about Tan Yuan Yuan twice and am about to see a San Francisco Opera production of “Tosca” tonight - big deal), going hiking (even my mom, who’s been here for just a little over 2 weeks, has been Crystal Springs Reservoir, San Andreas Lake, Golden Gate Park, and Portola Valley areas several times by now). I guess I can ask Michael to put up some photos he took in San Francisco Botanical Garden and the Rose Garden in Golden Gate Park, but they really are nothing compared to the magnificent palaces, ancient castles and quaint houses showcased on my friend’s blog (she had pictures of Bath, Oslo, Paris, and numerous cute little English towns such as Kenilworth, Conventry, etc) – too bad that she does not allow public access, or else I would have added a link here.

Just today I was talking to a friend about the Bay Area housing market. When I told him that for this year, I am paying $2,800 a month for a 4-bedroom, 2000-square-foot, 10-year old house in a not-so-attractive neighborhood, he said that it was fairly good deal. I have already battled with the landlord on various issues, as he does not want to spend money on professional services, indicating that he himself certainly does not feel well off enough. First I was really indignant, as I am a landlord myself, and have never interfered with my agent doing anything for my tenants in San Diego, even though my house in San Diego is in much better condition and a much better neighborhood. Then I realized that whatever I do for others has no bearing on how others will behave. Suffice to say that my experience in this rental house has not been exactly enjoyable, and I rather dislike the cold weather here – I would much prefer the sunny weather of Palo Alto and further south.

People say that the high property values justify themselves because you get what you pay for – in other words, by living in Bay Area, you get access to a lot of things that you cannot get elsewhere. In a way, in order to enjoy what the famed Bay Area has to offer, one has to seek them proactively – trying all kinds of restaurants, attending various cultural events, skiing at Lake Tahoe, wine-tasting in Napa or Sonoma Valley or Santa Cruz Mountains, hiking around the lakes and hills, etc, all of which cost money. And if one were to live in a less desirable neighborhood in a 50 to 100 year old un-renovated house in order to pay for all these things that Bay Area has to offer, well, that does not seem to be worth it really either, does it?

Therefore, no wonder multi-millionaires in Palo Alto feel rather poor! Michael and I have been discussing where we would like to buy a house in Bay Area within this year. He loves great scenery and terrific views, and can perhaps live in a smaller place, whereas I am used to really spacious house with many rooms, and therefore less insistent on the absolute beauty of the surrounding neighborhood. But both of us want to live in nicely designed and modern homes, with easy commutes. Despite the housing market slowdowns, it looks like that in order to get something that meets most of these criteria, it will cost at least $1.25 million. And it is not even in Palo Alto, the only place where the public schools are good enough for us to send our kid there. In other words, even after paying at least $1.25 million for a house, we will be paying private school tuitions, and NOT be taking advantage of the school district that presumably has contributed to the high property value.

Isn’t the Bay Area housing market ridiculous? Coming from Boston and San Diego, two places that are not exactly considered inexpensive in the United States, I find it shocking.

Then my friend in New York told me that she was about to rent a house that’s slightly bigger than ours for $5,600 a month! She and I both wondered – are we truly in a recession?