I'll 'have it all', please.

Say, for example, you hear a really crazy and shocking statistic, well it normally sticks in your mind because it's really quite out of the ordinary. So I'm not quite sure how I managed to bypass remembering the outstandingly low and, to me, disproportionate figure that only 3% of the young female population aspire to be a boss. THREE PERCENT?! I hear you say/cry/weep. Yep, you heard me right, it genuinely really is that low. (According to my bible of all sources, Grazia magazine.) 

I went to an all girls school, and I would go so far to say that I think my feminist stances are causally related to my educational upbringing. I'll never forget being told "you are the women of the future". So in that sense I'm a real pro-women-achieving-the-top-of-their-career-and-having-the-bestest-and-most-perfect-family-life type of person, a modern-day feminist some might say. I'm no bra burner, but I most definitely advocate the position that women should be financially independent. Love doesn't always last, just saying.

I'm not necessarily saying that the whole 'having it all' idealised scenario is achievable for every person, primarily due to subjective life choices and unexpected babies and far from perfect financial situations. The list is exhaustive. However, I think the key difference in current society is that while you may not want to be top of your career whilst balancing home life and everything that goes with it, you have the choice. Choice. The word that suffragettes once dreamed of, and 'tis now a common place reality for females. 

In my Political Philosophy module I recently learned of a term stemming from Utilitarianism known as 'adaptive preferences'. (Utilitarianism, in it's most basic decision-making form is 'the greatest good for the greatest number' - google it if you wish to know more, it's interesting stuff). Anyhow, adaptive preferences are the result of  a situation whereby people who cannot achieve a desired goal gradually lose their desire for it. This may be the case that you forego your career to have a child and then front the "well I didn't want a career anyway" card. Where everyone is thinking, well actually.. you kinda did. Of course, this could be true vice-versa where you miss out on the chance of having children in order to climb the career ladder. Adaptive preferences are based around how it would be disappointing to live with an unsatisfied preference, perhaps of 'having it all', and so in order to deal with this disappointment it is a way of persuading oneself that the unattainable goal was not worth seeking in the first place. 

Naturally, this got me thinking. The philosophical, and thus hazy, realistic conclusion that I came to is that I think many people live their lives in denial of their primary goals, for many reasons. Life gets in the way of the big dreams you start with, and if you're not careful it can pop every dream you had. Naturally not everyone's goals in life are to achieve managerial status in their workplace but everyone has a dream they aspire to and I think it's really important, more so in the face of these tough economic times, to keep the dream going and to strive to 'have it all' in your own personal interpretation of what 'all' is to you.

The importance of risk

While you are sitting here reading this very sentence, I want you to imagine how we got to where we are today. Dig a little deeper than well today came from following on from yesterday... I want you to consider how we have evolved; both technologically speaking and in terms of our material environment. If evolution is a trusted theory, or indeed if we were created ex nihilo, then there was once a point in this universe's lifetime when there was little to this earth. 

Because we were all born in the middle of the story, i.e. at a point whereby we are significantly more advanced in development in comparison to even just 100 years ago, it's really quite easy to overlook and take for granted our roots and progressive evolution. 

Nothing of what we have achieved so far, and will continue to discover and create, would be possible without taking risks. The word 'risk', to some, conjures up images of being exposed to danger, harm and loss. Others, notably entrepreneurs, see risk as the necessary factor in the equation to discovery and ultimately, success. I am a firm believer that nothing worth achieving in life comes easy.

Risk averse people tend to fall into the trap of thinking that risk only relates to entrepreneurs, but that's an easy mistake to falsely believe in. In choosing to go to university, young people take the risk in deciding to better their lives. It doesn't pay off for everyone, but for the majority this risk does; for the chance of success outweighs the risk of failure. And the same goes for school leavers opting to go straight into employment. It's the exact same formula and balance of risk/success. 

If everyone opted for the simple route in life, we would be without so many advancements. The thought of Sir Tim Berners-Lee not creating the internet is quite literally unthinkable. Sure there is the chance that a risk may not pay off, but instead of reading that as failure look at it as a learning curve. The best in the business didn't reach their peaks without a mountainous climb and set backs along the way. The amazing aspect to human existence is that we aren't aware of if we have, or ever will reach our ultimate potential, and so the scope for continuous development is infinitely open.

It's time to believe in yourself, erase the negative connotations associated with risk and embrace the infinite landscape of opportunity that is available to you in life. Why be a fleck in the existence of the universe when you can be respected and known for a valid purpose; for having achieved something worth remembering? It doesn't matter how big or small your impact is; everyone's climb to success is equally important in life... what matters is that you believed in yourself and gave something a go.