Chapter 12 & 13

Chapter 12; Work and Leisure

Occupational and Lifestyle Issues in Young and Middle Adulthood

This chapter starts out with ” Work- it seems as though that’s all we do sometimes.” In our society today this is the case for most of us. Many of us start off with an idea of what we want to be when we grow up. I personally wanted to be Indiana Jones, traveling all over the world looking for priceless treasures and narrowly escaping danger at ever turn. Childhood dreams are great! unfortunately not many of us end up being what we dreamed of. Choosing an occupation can be difficult. Some of us have family expectations, financial factors and even gender issues to tend with. Holland’s theory of occupational choice argued that “the choice of a vocation is an expression of personality”. Although i still think my personality expresses dangerous adventure, I choose to become a nurse. Where my witty, caring, and compassionate personality shines. Holland’s theory states that people choose occupations to optimize the fit between their individual traits, such as personality, intelligence, skills and abilities, and their occupational interest. I highly agree with this due to the simple fact of if you don’t enjoy what you do, why do it? and most people train for an occupation in a field of interest. However the  flaws in this  theory are, due to limitations that some have, and ethnic and gender factor. s.

Job satisfaction is a necessity in my opinion. I always found that praising and giving my employees a sense of accomplishment gave them the incentive to earn that praise every time they worked. I also feel if one is not satisfied in one work, ones work suffers.

I have for years juggled work and family. When my children were younger I, as millions of other parents, had to rely on my husbands and my ability to organize and mange the work ,household chores, family time and also find time for myself. Although it took many trial and error's, we finally found our way and have found that it benefits not only us but our children to have us able to have our leisure time away from our busy lives.

Chapter 13; Making It in Midlife

The Unique Challenges of Middle Adulthood

This is my chapter. As I am going to be 40 in about as week, I can so relate. I started noticing slight physical changes in my appearance a couple of years ago. I started having more grey hairs emerge, my back and knees would hurt more and more after any physical activity. And with my experience with working with older females the likely hood of developing osteoporosis, i decided to make a huge life change. I began to exercise on a regular basis, my eating habits have changed dramatically, I still sneak my occasionally Big Mac and Fries, but because of the scare of being so debilitated in my “golden years” I realized it was time to take responsibility for my health. And I can honestly say that my stress level has also improved with my physical improvement.  I have always had type A behavior but have focused it in different areas of my life. When I learned to direct it inwards it helped keep me on track. I am not saying that I am hostile or always angry , I just don’t like to fail at anything. i do fear getting older and the future changes , both physically and mentally. Menopause is something that my mother has recently gone through that was very difficult for both her and I to deal with. As women we are often given talks about sex, marriage, child rearing, and parenting. But how many of us can actually say we are given any heads up about this major event that will eventually happen to us all? None I know. I hope now that I have helped my mother with this stage of her life I will better prepared when it happens to me. And I hope that I can pass this knowledge on to my daughter.