The New York Times has published a resignation piece from Greg Smith, the executive director and head of Goldman Sachs’ United States equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. A man who’s responsible for selling things to more than half the world has had enough.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/opinion/why-i-am-leaving-goldman-

sachs.html?pagewanted=2&_r=4&hp

 
‘These days, the most common question I get from junior analysts about derivatives is, “How much money did we make off the client?” It bothers me every time I hear it, because it is a clear reflection of what they are observing from their leaders about the way they should behave. Now project 10 years into the future: You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the junior analyst sitting quietly in the corner of the room hearing about “muppets,” “ripping eyeballs out” and “getting paid” doesn’t exactly turn into a model citizen.’

 
The 1987 film Wall Street was an excoriating satire on short-termism and greed which attracted generations of people with psychopathic tendencies into Finance. Browse this report into the issue.

It takes a long time for the zeitgeist to change, and we’re entrenched in a culture that reward disgraceful behaviours with huge wads of cash, and tells the rest of us that money is the only measure of success. It’s a message that’s quickly filtered down through every section of society from celebs and industry to medicine, charity and council estate gangsters. 

‘My sense is that the majority of the people in finance have an urge to prove themselves. And banks offer a platform where they can do so. I feel there’s a particular kind of insecurity to many bankers, a form of neediness and a deep desire to compensate. Love? Many people in banking try to project an image of perfection, and banks play to that, trying to make you look perfect and feel invulnerable. It’s very easy to get hooked to that life, to become addicted to work and the money.’ 1

There’s never ending research on people who are poor and very little on people who are very rich, but increasing anecdote suggests that people in high earning jobs have serious problems with exhaustion, addiction, terror of failure and entrenched self-loathing. Which seems a sane response to being prepared to rip someone’s face off as part of your job.

Now that a hyper-successful super-achiever has spoken out about his disgust at a system that encourages people to see themselves and other people as things, perhaps the message will filter down. Gordon Gekko got rich not through talent but through illegal insider trading. And when he got out of prison no one was there to greet him.

1. Luyendijk J. Ex-mergers and acquisitions banker: ‘There’s no time for friends’. The Joris Luyendijk banking blog. The Guardian. 2012 January 

It used to be that women started out happier than men and in late middle age ended up less happy. Now, from the very beginning of adulthood onward women are generally less happy than men with depression being the second most debilitating condition worldwide for women (heart disease is first.) For men it is the tenth. This is partly because women believe that self-improvement means working on our weaknesses – we pay less attention to our strengths and we’re spectacular at focusing on what we believe to be our failings.

Women are not more stressed because we secretly yearn to spend all day with the kids. Across cultures, research shows that women without children are happier than women with children because having children may be existentially fulfilling but it is a day to day grind. Furthermore, a great many children are not secretly yearning for their mother to be at home baking cakes, but a good number would like their mother to be less stressed and tired.

Happy women have often decided to be happy. This isn’t being resigned to a miserable life, but does depend on two things: focusing on moment to moment feelings of contentment and happiness, and discovering what makes us feel creative and fulfilled, then aiming our lives towards that.

Life as we’re told we should live it is particularly toxic for women, the statistics for domestic violence, wage disparity, discrimination, overwork, malnutrition and abuse are enough to make anyone, woman or man, depressed. But there are sane ways through what can seem overwhelming.

Making strong connections with other women does not mean that you hate men. It means that you value women and that you value yourself. Beginning to examine how you think about your character and identity; the opportunities and limitations of your environment; your relationships with family, friends and the wider world; and developing your own personal philosophy to make sense of the world are structured ways of considering how you want to live. Countless millions of women before you have taken this journey and you too can help break new ground for people following behind as well as for yourself.

Men can choose to feel threatened by and hateful about women or examine the many roots of that all-too-often lethal resentment to find freedom from a system that deeply damages men too. Mutual dependence isn’t weakness. It’s reality.

A world that is not toxic for women is a world that is fit for us all to live in. 

Happy Women's Day!

Happy St David’s Day!

St David was very active in supressing the Pelagian heresy;  that is, that we have free will, Original Sin makes no sense and that we can make choices about who we are and what we do.

It seems counterintuitive to focus on sin and suffering during this glorious spring day, and in fact many Christians won’t, in preference spending time in contemplation of their relationships. Here’s a 15 minute clip of Bishop Nick Baines’ thoughts on the balance between being an individual and being a member of many societies.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006xp1x/episodes/upcoming

Christian or otherwise we all need time to think, just to sit around doing nothing at all but instead  being in active contemplation of how we are with ourselves, with our family and friends and  in relationship to other people too. Therapy is not, thank goodness, an organised religion  - any therapist worth the name will be at pains to give you the space to claim personal authority  - but we do offer a structure to help get the best out of your contemplation.

There is no original sin, you have freedom within certain constraints and the free will to exercise choices. Where there’s no sin there’s no judgement. 

If you get the slightest opportunity today get out in the sun, breath in this glorious Spring and do nothing for a while.