It is amazing the aftershocks that go on after a famous person dies. 

I’m sure that a lot of it is because the death of a famous person shoves the reality of our own mortality right in our faces.  It reminds us that death is a given and nobody can avoid it regardless of their station in life. 

Moreover, it’s a wake-up call that every day is a gift and as my Grandma used to say, “tomorrow is not promised to us”. 

I think every person you meet has something to teach you, either directly or indirectly – by word or by deed. 

To my mind the central take-away from the life of Michael Jackson (that all of us can learn from) is that happiness can never, ever be found outside of yourself.  Or as I heard someone say recently – your lasting and on-going happiness needs to be on “self start” (thanks for posting on FB, Felicia!!).  Nobody and no thing can “start” it for us.  

In the sad cautionary tale that was the larger-than-life life of Michael Jackson we saw that…

• Lasting happiness can’t be found in being talented (even gifted)  in a particular area (plenty of miserable geniuses in history)
• Lasting happiness can’t be found in your work, regardless of how great your achievements are
• Lasting happiness can’t be found in being wealthy or buying things
• Lasting happiness can’t be found in being famous
• Lasting happiness can’t be found in being adored — even by millions of people (if you don’t love yourself none of that matters)
• Lasting happiness can’t be found in obsessing about and/or altering your appearance – if you feel “ugly” inside no amount of plastic surgery or procedures will change that

• Lasting happiness can’t be found in your personal relationships with friends, family and lovers

• Lasting happiness can’t be found in substance abuse

• Lasting happiness can’t be found in having children (you may love them, they may bring you moments of incredible joy, but they aren’t responsible for/capable of making you truly happy)

All that said, I’m not going to be so presumptuous as to tell you that I know the formula for lasting happiness.  I (like all of us, I suppose) am still tinkering with the recipe on a daily basis. 

But there are a few things that I am sure of (only because I’ve seen it time and time again in my life and the lives of others), specifically:

1) Lasting happiness can never be found outside of yourself.  Happiness is largely a choice based on our internal dialog and the meanings we choose to give to the experiences that we go through 

2) Living your life feeling constantly grateful for all that you DO have in your life (the glass half-full perspective) always makes you feel better

3) Sometimes you really have to force happiness.  You need to fake it til you make it – rather than waiting for it to descend on you

4) Its a lot easier to be happy if you are always truly living in the present moment rather than worrying about the future or ruminating about the past

And that’s about all I do know on the subject from my 44 years on the planet… so I will leave it for some of our greatest minds to weigh in with something far more profound…I love these…

The basic thing is that everyone wants happiness, no one wants suffering. And happiness mainly comes from our own attitude, rather than from external factors. If your own mental attitude is correct, even if you remain in a hostile atmosphere, you feel happy. -H.H. The Dalai Lama

My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I’m happy. I can’t figure it out. What am I doing right? - Charles Schulz

Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within. It is not what we see and touch or that which others do for us which makes us happy; it is that which we think and feel and do, first for the other fellow and then for ourselves. – Helen Keller

If you observe a really happy man you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double dahlias in his garden. He will not be searching for happiness as if it were a collar button that has rolled under the radiator. -W. Beran Wolfe

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Keeping your priorities straight, even in a recession, is an important part of being a Career Free Agent. Your long term happiness and job satisfaction are at stake. Tips for being loyal to yourself and your family are part 5 of my 6 part series on The Free Agent Outlook on Work.

Loyalty is such an unused and forgotten words these days. It seems counter intuitive and impractical to think about putting yourself and your family before your job in a recession. But if you truly consider your daily routine and your long-term sanity, you’ll see how this makes sense. Whether your “family” is just you and close friends or two kids, a spouse and a dog – the loyalty principle holds true.

• Know what is important to you and what you value – and protect and nurture them. If you need to write your own eulogy to figure this out – do it. Hint: relationships are probably first. Not sure if your current career conflicts with your values or your personality? Learn more about yourself and how that impacts career choice.
• Don’t wait until there is a crisis – a job loss, a divorce, a health problem; maintain your relationships (professional, personal) in good times.
• Follow the ACIP model of decision-making when you need to make a tough call that you won’t regret. Do you need to find another job to avoid an unethical boss – but you’re worried about the financial consequences? Do you need to quit your job ASAP because it’s so stressful that you have physical symptoms – yet your job options elsewhere are slim?
• Have a life outside of work. Develop personal relationships and satisfy your interests in activities unrelated to your job. Heard of “diversification”? It’s not just for investments. That way, if one part of your life suffers a blow you have another part to rely on.

Still to come, the 6th and final Free Agent Principle: Think “Right” Thoughts. And no, it will not involve stimulants (except a fancy caffeinated beverage, maybe).

For the previous posts for this 6 part series see:
The 6 Principles of the Free Agent Worker
Principle #1: Know and Strengthen Your Marketable Skills
Principle #2: Stay Mobile
Principle #3: Watch Your Company and Industry
Principle #4: Do Your Job Well

This blog post was graciously submitted to BizzyWomen by The Career Key Blog, run by Juliet Wehr Jones, J.D.  The Career Key™ gives you expert help with your career search and career choices — career change, career planning, job skills, and choosing a college major. Our career assessment helps you find a career by matching your personality with careers and providing you complete and accurate information about each career you choose to explore.

I really like alpha males – Hercules is the latest and perhaps greatest example in my line-up. Johannes is another. But these male leaders are not only a dying, but now an unnecessary breed.

Evolution from an industrial to a knowledge economy realizes the day of Hercules – known for strength, dominance, and authority – as fleeting. “Men could become losers in a global economy that values mental power over might,” Business Week argues. The age of force is over.

Issues of dependence and independence, dominance and subordination are largely irrelevant to how emerging young women see themselves, Harvard psychologist Dan Kindlon argues in his book Alpha Girls. “Generation Y is the first generation that is reaping the full benefits of the women’s movement,” he says. “Women corporate leaders blend feminine qualities of leadership with classic male traits.”

Gen Y women have both masculinity and feminity, developing as the best of both worlds. We balance the typically female feeling part of ourselves with the typically male thinking parts. We are powerful hybrids integrating “the intuitive and rational, the tender and hardheaded, the self-sacrificing and self-serving.”

We utilize a “transformational approach that focuses on building a team. The team approach is less hierarchal than the traditional business model. A girl’s primary goal is not to win but to maintain relationships,” Kindlon says.

The way of the alpha girl is the rallying cry for Generation Y. We disdain complex rules and authoritarian structures.

In contrast, men and boys “base their reasoning on how established rules or laws should be applied, rather than on the feelings of those affected by their decisions,” Kindlon reports. “Male children learn to put winning ahead of personal relationships or growth, to feel comfortable with rules, boundaries, and procedures.”

Men and boys with such personality types are not naturally in tune with other people’s feelings, a key to success in the new economy. Leadership that marshals and directs is often observed by young women as part of the dinosaur age.

Gen Y women will lead the new generation to positive and meaningful change. The ascent of women in the workforce will be unprecedented in history, and promises to have far-reaching implications.

We already see more women than men attaining bachelor’s degrees. In 2005, nearly 59 percent of undergraduates were granted to women. By 2050, it is projected that the degree gap will grow drastically.

Jobs are no different. Business Week reports, that “from last November through this April, American women aged 20 and up gained nearly 300,000 jobs, and American men lost nearly 700,000 jobs.” Research also shows that women who are in management make companies more profitable, even among the Fortune 500.

Roles traditionally filled by men – that of lawyers, doctors and managers – are seeing an influx of women. Other male-dominated industries such as manufacturing and construction seem to be perpetually in downturn, while women are found concentrated in upcoming and thriving industries such as education and healthcare.

As men are being hemorrhaged in blue-collar, white-collar, and gold-collar jobs, young women are picking up the slack, becoming both the providers and the glue for families.

The new economy is largely dominated by young women who have unique skills, not by men who have been taught to follow the rules.

“Men are less suited than women to the knowledge economy, which rewards supposedly female traits such as sensitivity, intuition, and a willingness to collaborate,” reports Peter Coy in Business Week. “Men have tended to do better in the hierarchies, following orders and relying on positional power.”

Young men then, seemingly devoid of the meaning and opportunities that once defined them, are left in a prolonged state of adolescence. And this limbo doesn’t bring out the best in young men, columnist Kay Hymowitz argues.

“Men feel threatened by female empowerment,” Hymowitz states in one theory, “and in their anxiety, they cling to outdated roles.”

Today’s young men are “following the line of Peter Pan, ‘I don’t want to grow up.’” Hymowitz argues. “Plus, who needs commitment when there is a fantasy football team league to dominate, the possibility that a gaming product better than the Xbox 360 could be on the horizon, and your live-in girlfriend will have sex with you whenever you want?”

Young men today “suffer from a proverbial fear of commitment,” and this may be the biggest problem – “a tendency to avoid not just marriage but any deep attachments,” leading to a life that is as empty of passion as it is of responsibility, Hymowitz says. For the contemporary guy, it’s “easy to fill your days without actually doing anything.”

The solution? Not a new career, but marriage. Marriage, she says, turns boys into men.

Kindlon agrees. Married men are more successful in work, getting promoted more often and receiving higher performance appraisals than single men. Married men are much less likely to engage in risky behaviors such as drinking heavily, driving dangerously, or using drugs. They are more likely to work regularly, help others more, and volunteer more. Married men also have better immune systems, and are half as likely not to commit suicide.

But women don’t need men like they need us.

“Marriage is generally more beneficial to men than women,” Kindlon reports. “Research found that women who stayed single in their lives seemed to have good mental health, while men who stayed single all their lives did not. Choosing to be single seems to be good for women but not so good for men.”

Role reversal.

This post also published at Brazen Careerist. 18 more comments, opinions and viewpoints there.

Rebecca Thorman (www.modite.com) gives career advice for the next generation of workers. Barely out of college, Rebecca job-hopped her way to becoming the Executive Director of MAGNET, an organization dedicated to attracting and retaining young talent in her region. During that time, she also began authoring the blog Modite, featured in several media outlets including the New York Times as the key community for Generation Y leadership. Rebecca is known for writing candidly from experience.