Try to Relax

Try to Relax
Modern society stresses choices. But choice can also bring stress.
BY CLAUDIA ROSETT
Saturday, September 2, 2000 12:01 a.m. EDT

Americans are wrapping up what might sound like one of the most relaxing summers ever. Record numbers of folks could afford to travel, shop and amuse themselves. Income is rising; crime is falling. Never have there been so many options for how to live your life, shape your work or talk with someone across town or on the far side of the planet.

So how do most Americans feel about all this?

Stressed out.

Or so it seems if you pay attention to what we're reading, writing and groaning over. "Lingering Job Worries Amid a Sea of Plenty," reports the New York Times, noting that although job prospects look great, some workers fear they can't keep pace with changing technology. A study in the July issue of American Psychologist finds that between 1957 and 1996 the number of Americans who feel they've edged up on a nervous breakdown has soared by one-third. "Overscheduling can lead to stressed-out parents," warns the Daily Oklahoman. "Ten easy ways to reduce the stress of being a teen," offers the Wilmington (N.C.) Morning Star.

It seems for all the wealth, there's little rest for the stressed. Prosperity is putting so many Americans on the road and in the air that many have found even their summer getaways turning into a crescendo of traffic jams and flight delays. Those who stay put feel run over by the rat race. "Booming Economy Taking Its Toll on American Workers' Leisure Time," reads a Business Wire dispatch that says according to a recent Internet survey, most online Americans are "stressed out and time crunched."

Then there's the grim little summary in the August Digest of the National Bureau of Economic Research, which reports that from the 1970s to the 1990s, "a period of generally rising living standards," the number of Americans describing themselves as "very happy" dropped to 30% from 34%. Still not bad, but the trend is worrisome. "American society may be wealthier measured in dollars and cents, but we are less happy," reports the NBER study.

What's going on?

Maybe new era technology along with boosting the economy has simply made it cheaper to complain. But my guess is there's more to it. Since the 1970s, Americans have been pioneering the way to a new world of choices. Deregulation, growing world trade and travel and the almighty computer revolution have come together to create huge new markets able to cater ever more precisely to specialized demands.

The options keep proliferating, from how we manage money to how we treat disease to what we define as a career, a workplace or a ham sandwich--do you want it on a croissant, on regular or whole-grain bread, maybe frozen and mail-ordered over the Internet? Or warmed right here in the microwave?

Choice is great. But when it's new, it can also be profoundly confusing. When fresh markets open up, anywhere, there is usually a stretch of shakeouts and fretting, as everyone scrambles for the best angles. The vast and broadly efficient futures markets of today, to take one example, evolved from small bucket shops infamous in the 19th century for their shady deals and lurching prices.

Such transitions, while hugely rewarding in the long run, can bring a load of stress up front. Consider the humble telephone. When I returned to America in 1997, after 11 years abroad, I set about ordering a home phone line. What had been in the early 1980s a no-frills operation had by the late 1990s turned into a college entrance exam. Which long-distance carrier did I prefer, and what kind of payment package? Did I want call waiting? Call forwarding? Voice mail? Conference calling? Calling cards? Did I want phone service from my Internet provider? (We won't even get into cell phones).

The result, of course, was service better, cheaper and more exactly suited to my habits. But at the moment of decision, all those choices left me--yep--pretty stressed out.

Many of the surveys on stress, including the NBER study, note that the most stressed-out Americans seem to be women. They are precisely the crowd whose lives over the past generation or two have changed most dramatically--moving out of the kitchen and into those choice-fraught paying jobs. That can mean financial freedom but emotional uproar while the glitches get worked out. In bookstores last week, you could find Time magazine asking whether women need husbands, while on the nearby shelves a raft of how-to books were telling women just how to catch them.

With all that stress swirling around, one might wonder if we'd would rather be spared all these choices. But you know, even in this, a free society offers an overarching choice. If you truly despair of achieving greater ease, you can unplug your computer, trade away the treadmill of growing opportunity and maybe even ask for asylum in, say, Belarus or Cuba. Somehow, though, I'd say that's one choice not worth worrying about.

Ms. Rosett is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board. Her column appears Thursdays in The Wall Street Journal Europe as "Letter From America" and Saturdays on OpinionJournal.com.