STFU #76 - Elderly Women Shoplifters (Japan) and The First Dog in Space (Russia) - Founder Loneliness and how to handle it

Japan’s Prisons Are a Haven for Elderly Women

Japan has the world’s oldest population, with ~30% of its citizens over 65 years old. (~5 times that of India)

Every aging society has it's own issues. But Japan faces a unique challenge - Elderly women are frequently caught shoplifting and sent to prison. Why is it that despite being the fourth largest economy, Japan faces this strange issue of ‘senior crime’ by elderly women?

Is there a bigger income divide or are the women oppressed so much that they have to resort to shoplifting to manage their needs??

Incidentally, the biggest reason for shoplifting is not money or gender bias. It is - shockingly - Loneliness!

As?the economy evolved in Japan, the elderly started staying separately from their children. They had money to spend but did not have company to talk to, or someone to share their stresses with.?Even though they have a house and a family, they don’t feel connected with them - they feel they are not understood.?

Prison is where not only their nutrition needs are taken care of, but also their social needs are factored in, with more inmates to talk to and work to keep them busy!

Most women who were caught felt heard and someone to talk to in the prison.?The guards double up as nurses at night.?

As some of the inmates say, “Prison is an oasis for me—a place for relaxation and comfort. I don’t have freedom here, but I have nothing to worry about, either. There are many people to talk to. They provide us with nutritious meals three times a day.”?

“I enjoy my life in prison more. There are always people around, and I don’t feel lonely here”?

“I was alone every day and feeling very lonely. My husband gave me a lot of money, and people always told me how lucky I was, but money wasn’t what I wanted. It didn’t make me happy at all.”

Elderly women are not cheating the shopkeepers. They are cheating on their own loneliness.?

Laika - The Russian Dog on her maiden journey to Space

In 1957, Russia decided to send Sputnik 2 into Space and wanted to check if living beings could travel to space. They decided to find a dog, preferably a female stray dog?because females were smaller and apparently more docile.

They finally shortlisted?Kudryavka (Little Curly) as?Sputnik 2’s?dog cosmonaut, who later?became known as Laika, “barker” in Russian.

Laika was a stray dog that had roughed it out on the streets, so she was resilient to high variations in temperature, as she had battled the unpredictable Russian weather!?

However, as the technology to de-orbit had not yet been developed, Laika's survival was never expected.?

On 7th November 1957,?Laika flew on a rocket and rose to 2000 miles above Moscow streets, where she roamed around just weeks before.?

The first dog to go to space, to rise so high, that no other dog (or living being) had done before.?

But at the same time, no one knew what she felt like - was she nervous or excited? Choked or comfortable??

She could never share what she felt or undo once she rose to the top.?

Minutes later, she died of overheating, as temperatures inside reached 90 degrees due to some miscalculations.?

She created History and became one herself - both within moments of each other.?

Lonely Founders / Leaders

On one hand, elderly women shoplifted out of ‘loneliness’ - to go to prison to find company. On the other hand, a dog created history but had a lonely journey to the top - one she could never live to share with others.?

Loneliness need not be when you are actually alone - while they say it is lonely at the top, sometimes it is lonely at the bottom also, amongst the crowd.

I had written about Male Loneliness a few months back, but this one is not about gender. It is more about how to discover (and handle) loneliness as a leader/Founder.?

As Founders - be it men or women, as you rise, the journey gets lonelier - and you struggle to share it with everyone. Because if you admit being lonely - Your team might think of you as ‘vulnerable’, your investors might think of you as ‘weak’ and your family might think of you as ‘obsessed with work’! You struggle to speak as you rise. You end up being in your ‘Laika’ phase!

But then sometimes you make mistakes, you become vulnerable, you get ‘caught’ only to seek company - only to seek conversations, only to ‘feel grounded’ and ‘relatable’ to others - only to run away from loneliness.?

Loneliness also causes stress - due to changes in your ‘social situations’ - such stress is called?‘Psychosocial stress’.?

This stress can have multiple effects on a person’s?physical, mental, and social well-being. Like losing sleep, getting angry more often or sometimes just losing it and worsening mental health.?If not treated, this can increase the risk?of high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.?

How can you help

If you find someone senior in your team (Founder / Business Heads) in ‘Laika’ mode or being ‘vulnerable’ looking to make mistakes, she might need your help.?

How can you help -?Recently, Mint talked about ‘pebbling’ - where you nudge someone with some small bits - a small act of a small joke or a meme to make someone feel light or recalling an old memory of you together, building a wave of warmth;?A small token of affection can change someone’s mood (and redefine their day) completely.?

There is another angle to?"Shared experiences" with the team, but will keep it for next time.?

At True Elements, we have all gone through this level of stress. Most of the senior folks might be able to relate to such symptoms, either in them or their bosses. While none of us have engaged in shoplifting, we have all had our ‘vulnerable’ moments - our prison of lunch breaks and gossip sessions help us resolve the stress. And once in a while, we ‘pebble’ each other to change the mood. Along the way, we have hopefully avoided any Laikas being created (it has worked for me for sure!).?

Daughters as your Pebblers!

As the world celebrates International Daughter’s Day today, it makes me relate to the pebbling that our kids can do, especially your daughters. Cultural norms suggest that daughters tend to have a higher level of empathy and hence support you more emotionally.?

At the same time, daughters keep you grounded as they can be bluntly brutal to you. In their own way, though, they ensure you do not become your own ‘Laika’.

Happy Daughter’s Day to all the daughters out there - keep challenging, keep empathizing.?

And for the parents out there, here is a glimpse of two images I managed to capture in the past few months - to me, these two define how we treat our daughters as fathers and want to believe! (Courtesy: Vizag and Indigo)

To summarize,?

those of you who are rising too high only to make things around them look smaller, stop ‘barking’.?As the temperature rises, you don’t want to burn alone in your own heat.

and those of you who are looking for prisons to find a company, wait to get pebbled soon, and then STFU!

References -?Japanese Shoplifting ,?Laika Story ,?Pebbling . Images - Google Images