Interview: The Concept of BirthQuake - What is a BirthQuake

Written by Tammie Byram Fowles, PhD, LISW-CP

Dru: In your book you identify cultural myths that you suggest interfere with individual growth and personal satisfaction. Would you share a few of them with us.

Tammie: Sure. The first is The Myth that more is better.

My generation was raised on television, and most of us were programmed to believe that the most and the biggest is the best. One of my favorite songs when I was a little girl began, "my dogs bigger than your dog." I learned it from a pet food commercial. Last fall PBS aired a special called "Affluenza" which proposed that Americans are suffering from an epidemic of raging consumerism and materialism, leading to symptoms like record levels of personal debt and bankruptcy, chronic stress, overwork, and broken families. And, the statistics that support this premise Dru are pretty staggering. They indicate, first of all, that Americans are wealthier than ever. For instance:

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   Americans on the average are 41/2 times wealthier than their great grandparents.
2. There's been a 45% increase in the US of per capita consumption in the last 20 years.
3. We own approximately twice as many cars as we did in 1950. And, while 89% of Americans own at least one car, only 8% of the world's population does.
4. The median size of a new house in 1949 was 1,100 square feet, In 1970, it was 1,385 square feet, and in 1993, it had grown to 2,060 square feet.
5. It's been estimated that 10 million Americans have two or more homes, while a minimum of 300,000 people go homeless in this country. And while Americans comprise 5% of the world's population, and consume 30% of its resources. So, While we're better of financially and materially, interestingly, we seem to be worse off in a number of ways.
6. It's been calculated that while the average American spends 6 hours a week shopping, the average parent spends just 4o minutes a week playing with their children, and one study found that we spend 40% less time playing with our kids than we did in 1965, and 163 more hours a year working. And finally, according to the index of social health, there's been a 51% decrease in American's overall quality of life.

So, It seems all to clear to me, that Having "more" materially, doesn't translate into greater happiness or satisfaction. In fact, I whole heartedly agree with Tom Bender, who observed that, "after a point, more, becomes a heavy load."

Another myth is the myth of Happily ever after.

So many of us were raised on fairy tales, that told us that once a particular event occurred, we'd live happily ever after. Consequently many people end up living on what Frederick Edwords referred to as "the deferred payment plan." Those of us who've lived on the "deferred payment plan," have spent a great deal of our lives waiting. We've told ourselves that we'll be happy when we marry, make enough money, buy our dream house, have a child, when the kids leave home, or that we'll finally be happy when we retire. Unfortunately, the deferred payment plan, often causes us to project a significant part of ourselves, and our spirits into the future, so we end up failing to fully appreciate and even sometimes to be in the present. What so many of us fail to recognize, is that generally, experiencing Happiness is both an active and creative process. We create happiness in part, by what we choose to focus on, appreciate, and expect from our lives. It's been said that love is a verb, faith is a verb, and I'd add that happiness is a verb too.

And then there's The Myth of the Good Life. Our Fantasies of the good life so often seem to include images of luxury and wealth, and while the notion of the "good life" seems to be deeply ingrained in our generation's psyche's, the world was introduced to the concept of the "good life" by people like William Penn, Thomas Jefferson, and Henry David Thoreau, who's vision of the good life was very different than most of ours turned out to be. To these visionaries, the "good life" represented a lifestyle based on simplicity; not material gain, on personal autonomy; not acquisition, and on spiritual, emotional, and interpersonal growth; not net-worth.

I also think that most of us have forgotten that the American dream was founded, to a large extent on spiritual values, and we only need to take a look at the great seal on the back of every dollar bill, to be reminded of that.

So it may be that it's not that we need a new definition of the good life, or even a new American dream, as much as we need to reconnect with our earlier visions.

Finally, the last myth that I'd like to talk about, is the myth of having it all.

When I was busy mothering, writing, and managing a very demanding private practice, I had more in terms of financial and professional success, than I'd ever dreamed about as a young girl. And yet, I wasn't all that happy. I often felt stressed out, pressed for time, and that something was missing. At the same time, I couldn't understand why with all I had, that I could possibly want more. Then one day I realized, that it was the "more" that had become my problem. I'd bought into one of the most popular myths of my generation - that I could (and should) have it "ALL."

The reality is that No-one can have it all. When we choose one path, to some degree we forsake another, at least for the time being. We just can't do it "ALL" without making sacrifices, no matter how smart or tough we are, and while we all understand intellectually, that there's no way to have "everything" and give up "nothing," it seems like many of us are still trying very hard to pull it off.

Lilly Tomlin, one of my favorite comedians once joked, "If I'd known what it would be like to have it all, I might have settled for less." Today her comment feels far more like wisdom to me than humor. I believe that those of us who're determined to "have it all," and "all at once," have sentenced ourselves to a lifetime of ongoing struggle, and dissatisfaction.

I think it's delusional to expect that life can and should provide us with everything we want, and all at once. I also think we're being tremendously unfair to ourselves when we attempt to achieve it. I just don't think anyone should have to work that hard.