Love and Career during adulthood

The importance of love during adulthood:

According to Sternberg's triangular theory love consists of three essential elements: intimacy, passion, and decision/commitment. Intimacy groups feelings of closeness, affection, and connectedness. Passion encompasses the motivational drives relating to sex, physical closeness, and romance, in short physical attraction. Finally, the third element of love is the decision/commitment component which embodies the determination to maintain and keep this love going on. We can note by that that love makes us better people and fulfills our needs.

During adulthood, we tend to seek intimacy. According to Erikson’s intimacy vs isolation stage, from our post adolescence into our early 30s we focus on forming intimate relationships with others. In this stage we either form intimate relationships with others or we stay isolated. This theory implies that for one to have a good love and social life he must form relationships. People who have difficulties during this period experience feelings of loneliness and dissatisfaction, while those who build relationships based on intimacy experience growth, love, and more happiness We can say that love and intimacy influences one’s overall wellbeing and studies have shown that having a partner and being surrounded by love leads to having a healthy and happy life as well as it increases life expectancy.

The importance of work during adulthood

For almost all of us, early adulthood implies having life determining decisions. One of the most difficult thing we can undergo during this period is choosing a career. The choice we’ll make will relate to our financial situation, sense of self-worth, happiness and satisfaction in life. In short our career choices play a big role in the formation of our identities

• People work in order to obtain various rewards, or out of extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation drives people to obtain materialistic rewards, such as money and prestige. People also work for their own enjoyment, for personal rewards, not just for the financial rewards a job may bring. This is known as intrinsic motivation. Working is a meaningful act that brings psychological and even spiritual well-being and satisfaction. Work also brings a sense of personal identity. For example when introducing yourself you’ll start by stating your name, age and then follow by your occupation. What people do is a large part of who they are. Work also influences our social lives, for we’ll form social bonds and form friendships within the workplace we’re in.
• Work plays a big role into bringing us satisfaction and shaping our personalities, Erik Erikson suggested that during our adulthood we go through a period of ”generativity versus stagnation” which implies that one should serve his society or contribute to his family or others to be mentally fulfilled and this can be reflected through work.

• According to Vaillant, young adults go through a stage called career consolidation, and during this stage they become more focused on building their careers. This stage is important because during it, young adults tend to define and find themselves within the workplace they’re in and they will want to prove how competent they are.

• When we talk about work, we talk about our own identity and preferences. This is why according to Holland’s theory of personality, our jobs need to reflect who we are as people and therefore match our personalities in order for us to be fully content and avoid having burnouts, feelings of despair and even hate towards our profession.

Ingredients of a happy marriage:

• Couples have to show mutual affection to one another
• Communicate and avoid negativity as much as they can
• Mutually depending on each other and therefore being interdependent rather than seeing themselves as independent people
• Having social homogamy as in holding similar interests and agreeing on role distribution as well as having similarities when it comes to leisure activities
• Keeping the three essential love components alive in the relationship: passion, intimacy and commitment (according to Sternberg’s theory)
• Avoiding routine and making time for one another (going on date nights, spend time together away from work...)

Ingredients of a successful career:

• According to Holland’s personality type theory, one should choose a career that will be correspondent to his personality. This will make him more satisfied and happy with his job. (Example: someone who has a social personality type will make a good social worker, teacher, psychologist, salesperson…)
• Try out different jobs and careers before sticking to one, it’s completely normal to be unsure at first and performing different jobs before sticking up to one will help with having better job satisfaction.
• Make a list of advantages and disadvantages of the career you’re thinking of practicing, it will make things more clear in your mind and ensure that the career you’re choosing is right for you.
• Evaluate your own self and strengths and weaknesses.
• If you feel like the career you chose isn’t right for you, don’t force yourself to stay in it but explore other options until you acquire total commitment and satisfaction towards the job you’re going to perform.

Retirement and Planning

• Retirement shouldn’t be considered as a punishment for you but rather as taking a break and enjoying your time these are some tips that might help you throughout this phase you’re going to go through:
• Have a financial plan set and some personal savings set aside as well as a healthcare insurance for having these elements will ensure you having a good retirement without having to worry about living expenses.
• All your life you’ve worked so hard to provide us with everything we have, so don’t feel like you didn’t do enough, instead please take this time to take care of yourself.
• Step out from work slowly: start reducing the hours you work in gradually, up until your time to retire comes. In that way you’ll be more prepared instead of cutting off work suddenly.
• Volunteer your time if you miss working and you feel like there’s something you should do, in that way you’ll be helping yourself get used to being retired and you’ll be helping other people.
• Engage in activities you’ve always loved doing, you can engage in sport activities for they will keep you energetic and these are beneficial to your health. You can also travel and discover new countries. Keep a certain dynamic running into your life so you can avoid routine and therefore avoid getting bored.
• Stay distracted and spend more time with people who are dear to your heart and don’t worry about feeling alone for we’ll always be there for you!
• It’s okay for you to feel lonely or demotivated because of your retirement but keep in mind that just like you got used to going to work for the past years, you’ll get used to retirement, it is a phase that eventually everyone will have to go through, and it’s international therefore everyone experiences it in a certain way, but no matter of what happens keep in mind that you’re not alone in this and that you have all of the family’s support.