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Satisfaction
with a career tends to
increase over time. As the years go by, many workers
manage to find
ways to
spend more time performing the tasks they enjoy most,
while passing off
to
other—usually younger—workers some of the more annoying
tasks. More
experienced
workers generally have achieved a higher level of
competence and that
makes for
less job-related anxiety. They have a clearer
understanding of what is
expected
from them. Finally, in the absence of excessive
turnover, bad hires, or
a
repellant personality, they likely have accumulated a
set of
relationships that
provide support and a source of fun. Surveys
of lawyer
satisfaction show a clear upward trend in job
satisfaction over time.
According
to an In
addition to
more satisfying work and more work product control,
there is another
reason for
higher career satisfaction as the years go by. As we
age, we learn to
use more
“mature adaptations” to deal with the inevitable
setbacks and
disappointments
that come our way. Mature adaptations probably account
for the higher
rates of
happiness reported by people in their sixties than in
their twenties.
When we
are young and confronted by frustrations, we are more
inclined to turn
to
repression, disassociation, projection, or passive
aggression (consult
your old
Psych 101 text to jog your memory about these classic
defense
mechanisms). As
we get older, we increasingly use healthier techniques,
including
altruism,
humor, anticipation, suppression, and sublimation. For
example, an
older person
is somewhat less likely to obsess about an office slight
and more
likely to
shrug it off or laugh about it. The
central
finding of George Valliant, in Adaptation
to Life, an account of a classic longitudinal
study of ’42, ’43,
and ’44
male |