How Men Can Be Happy in 2024: Advice from a Woman Your Age

By | Gwenn Aspen | Anequim CEO

You are always living life wrong in today’s society.?

You can be on a self-improvement kick, go on any of the social media platforms, and in 15 minutes, receive completely conflicting advice.?

And 15 minutes later, you’ll feel far more inadequate than when you started.?

This sadness makes you want to scroll more for the dopamine spike.

And, sadly, the unhealthy cycle begins again.?

There is an epidemic of depression and suicide. Employers are complaining about the young people being “basket cases.”

“The number one thing I am looking for in employees is emotional stability,” I have heard employers say.?

We have a problem, but we’re not sure how to fix it. We know social media is impacting people negatively, and yet it is inescapable.?

As a 40-something woman who grew up in the 1990s and a working mom, I may have an insight as to what’s going on. It’s ever-present, conflicting advice that makes you constantly feel like a failure.?

Harsh, competing advice made me miserable when I was younger. I am a high achiever. I want to live my best life! I want to suck the marrow out of life. I am a lifelong learner and I want to soak in the wisdom of those who have gone before me.?

I am a seeker. I have written in a journal every day since I was 13 years old: documenting and detailing my goals, my thoughts, my feelings, how I see the world. How current events or books changed my perspective or made me think in a new way.

I have earnestly been asking for decades: What is the best use of my time? How can I be a good person and contribute best to the world??

The journey to self-discovery is not an easy one.

The best, most validating video I have ever seen about this phenomenon is this for women but now EVERYONE no matter who you are could create a similar montage like this.

Be a Lady They Said - Girls. Girls. Girls. Magazine

The young man's version of this would be:

• You need work-life balance. Don’t grind for the man, because then you are being taken advantage of.
• Be good at your job, but you need a side hustle too. But take care of your health. (You don’t have time to work out? What is wrong with you?!)
• Be sensitive, and access your feelings. Women want you to be more emotionally available.
• But don’t be too sensitive, OK?
• Be a provider, get a traditional wife, but not someone too needy who will kill your sex life.
• Wake up early and work out.
• But sleep is important. (If you don’t sleep you will get dementia.)
• Be aggressive. You need to take risks to get ahead, but also be conservative and listen to Dave Ramsey. Don’t take on too much debt.
• Show women you can provide. You have to demonstrate wealth and power but also save.
• If you really want to get ahead, you need to cold plunge, you need to sauna, you need to go on a hike.
• Go to college or go to a trade school. And definitely worry about AI taking your job.
• Learn about attachment styles. Learn about expressing yourself, but also be tough.
• You are too lonely, you are too social.?
• Socializing is wasting your time; you should be grinding.
• Drink to be cool.
• But, on second thought, don’t drink. It's bad for you.
• Are you meal prepping yet? How do you expect to be strong and in shape eating that crap? Every Sunday you need to meal prep. Wait, you aren’t working on Sunday? Do you even care about your future?

For every person, with every bend, there is conflicting advice.

This is a problem women my age have experienced for decades. We see the cultural expectations and this crazy situation for what it is. We had to learn how to cope and are, thankfully, largely not bothered by the conflicting advice of today.

However, I might have some wisdom to share on this subject.

Here is some conflicting advice I have had to wrestle with:

• Dr. Laura says quit your job and live more simply, but no, I need to be a “Girl Boss” and “Lean In.”
• You are a bad mom if you let your kid cry it out (Why are you not gentle parenting?), but put your baby on a tight Babywise schedule.
• Tiger Mom has successful kids who got into prestigious colleges and have a strong future. You’re kid isn’t learning Mandarin or playing the violin at age 3? You slacker! How are your weak American kids going to make it in this competitive global workforce? But no, kids need to play more. Ever hear of Montessori? What about the Waldorph schools??
• Be a granola mom. Make your own baby food. We need to save the planet for our kids! Don’t have trash, don’t buy new things! Spend your time thrifting. Be green. But also work. Show your daughters that they can do anything. Take out has so much trash. It is so wasteful. If you work you will have more trash for the convenience but work, but be green.

I spent way too much time and energy grappling with the conflicting advice and charting my course of action. There is a paradox of choice and now because of social media all of us are being bombarded with it every time we look at our phones.?

Here is how to cope:

See the double bind for what it is. There is no winning in this world of conflicting advice. You will never feel like enough which is what marketers want, and the social media companies want. There will always be someone richer, better, more successful, more in shape, better looking.

People will only get better at making you feel more insecure because they can hack into your brain with the super-computers and the target marketing and the big data.?

You are not made to feel inadequate because you are weak, or a coward, or lost. It is by design because insecurity causes you to act. Acting means giving time, attention and money.?

Take a personality test. Get clear on who you really are as a person.

The first thing to do is get clear on how you are fundamentally built as a person. Get clear on your strengths and weaknesses. You can only moderately improve your weaknesses. Come to terms with this. Focus on your strengths and just manage your weaknesses.?

If your personality says you are not meant to be an entrepreneur then let all that side hustle, grind advice totally go. It isn’t for you. It is okay. There is nothing wrong with you. The world needs all kinds of people.

This step is going to help you discard like 50% of the advice out there on the internet.

Get clear about advice based on your current situation.

In college, I realized there was advice for rich people and advice for not rich people. Rich people's advice was, "College is for partying! Live your best life! You’re only young once, go on that spring break trip! Be in the sorority. College is about the experience.”

This is advice for people who have connections and can get a swanky job from their parent’s country club network. For everyone else, “minimize your expenses so you can have as little debt as possible, take as many classes as possible so you can graduate early and not be poor. WORK as hard as possible to get high grades and recommendations from your professors, or from your internships because otherwise you will be underemployed when you graduate."

This one is really easy to get wrong. Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t get this right, but just knowing that the rules are totally different for some people based on their wealth and status can help you a lot. Ask yourself if certain advice is for you.

Once you accept who you are you can get clear on your priorities.

What are the experiences you want to have in your life? Do you want to have kids? Do you have a specific passion? Do you want to live a religious life? Do you want to live a hippie life? Do you care about having nice things? Do you not care about having nice things? Do you want to have a nature focused life or city life? Do you want to own your own company some day? Do you care about travel? How focused on fashion and appearances do you want to be??

Once you are clear about what your priorities are, filter life through the priority lens. These can change! If your priorities change then shift the lens you look at advice from. You can court advice too, but give it up once you decide it isn’t for you. At a certain point make a decision and move on. Never ending FOMO will make you unhappy, and keep you stuck.

Chart a path and always remind yourself why you chose that direction.

Technology, psychology, and culture are going to try to push you from your path. They are designed to do that so you buy things. So you are going to be tempted. You are still going to feel insecure. You are going to still feel like you are living life wrong. Marketing is very sly, social media is sly too, and they are not looking out for you. They want to use you for their own agenda. The way to happiness is staying strong on your path and really letting go of advice, designed to take you off it.

Here were some of the decisions I made that helped me sift through advice:

• I wanted a family.?
• I wanted my kids to grow up with a bunch of cousins around and a large extended family.
• I valued security over flashiness so we doubled down on Dave Ramsey and authenticity over showiness.
• I wanted to live in a city but with a lot of experiences in nature (we camped a lot with the kids and prioritized family time in the woods over our kids being amazing athletes).
• I decided I never need to own anything that is more designer than J Crew, or Anne Taylor. High fashion will never be for me.?
• I value connection with people over material possessions.?
• I value simplicity over consumption. I don’t want lots of things because they stress me out.?
• I need to be social for my mental health. I have to prioritize friendships. Not tons of friends but socializing is important to me.
• Working out and health is important to me.
• There is a limit to how much I want to focus on my looks. I will try, because looking put together is important to me, but too much focus on looks is not my jam.
• I accept how I look and I am not going to try to look like someone else.
• I will accept the aging process in general but still get botox but not go overboard.?
• I value being informed.
• I don’t want to get too personal on social media.
• I am a working mom, I am not a very traditional person, I am not going to take advice from people who have a different viewpoint.
• I care about balance in my life.?
• I need rest and I will prioritize sleep.
• I don’t like to watch sports. I just don’t, and I am not going to pretend I do.

When I know these things about my life and myself, I can easily just discard advice that doesn’t serve me. I am happier. It is an ongoing process. I am not perfect at it. Again, marketers and social media are very sneaky; they can hack into your brain. You have to be vigilant. But the sooner you can stop worrying or giving energy to advice that is not for you, the happier, and more emotionally stable you will be.