141. Single AND Happy?!

“Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination.”

-Immanuel Kant

It is hard to believe that society’s prescription for true happiness, “go to school, graduate, find a job, get married, have kids, retire” impacts the mindset as we get older- even when we know better. The lifelong exposure and deep (intention or unintentional) grip to these ideologies are strong. From day one we are bombarded with messages on how you should live and what should make you happy…

The problem is that most people aren’t happy. A study by NORC at the University of Chicago finds that just 14% of American adults say they're very happy (2020, NBC News).

Marriage (or a committed relationship) is a MAJOR step in that happiness prescription- where it’s no longer just about ourselves and our journey. SO, I am excited to welcome Dr. Peter McGraw to the T&T mic to unpack this conversation around that pivot point going from single to married and how maybe not everyone wants to pivot that way and in turn, deeply impacts our happiness as we know it.

Dr. McGraw is an expert in the interdisciplinary fields of judgment, emotion, and choice with a Ph.D. in quantitative psychology from The Ohio State University. You have recently seen him on the Today Show with Maria Schriver as well as a guest on The Joe Rogan Show and a contributor to major publications such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. McGraw is a fellow podcaster, his show, The Solo Life,  is a single person’s guide to a remarkable life.

McGraw states, “More and more people are becoming aware that marriage is an overprescribed path to a good life. An observation reflected in rapidly changing demographics. One-hundred and twenty-eight million American adults are unmarried, and 25% of Millennials are projected to never marry.”

Marriage is a wonderful thing IF that is authentically what you want. This is an awesome conversation about challenging status quo and getting to the roots of what actually makes us happy and further normalizing the idea of a solo life! If you feel like the weird one, always know you are not the only one haha… there is a whole community out there waiting for ya!

Highlights:

The solo life. Read the stats if you don’t believe us. Challenging status quo. Core values, self-care, and getting to actually know yourself. Maybe your ideal is somewhere in-between. Love. Faith. Following your heart. Communication and expectations. Nurture vs. nature. A new wave of happy.

Peter McGraw:

McGraw is an expert in the interdisciplinary fields of judgment, emotion, and choice. His research has answered questions, such as “How do feelings affect the ways people spend money?,” “Can people feel happy and sad at the same time?,” and, “Why does the TSA suck?”

His work has appeared in Management Science, Psychological Science, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

McGraw received a B.A. in psychology and M.Ed. in educational psychology from Rutgers University and an M.S. and Ph.D. in quantitative psychology from The Ohio State University. His post-doctoral training was conducted at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School, where he was mentored by Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman.

https://petermcgraw.org/

https://www.youtube.com/user/b9violations

@petermcgraw

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