There is no formula for life satisfaction, no recipe that doesn’t produce lumps of discontent or frustration. This is not the same observation as the backlash-tastic chestnut about the foolishness of “wanting it all,” an insidious phrase designed to make women sound like covetous and unrealistic divas. The women I know have not sought it all; we have simply pursued more than previous generations permitted.
Some of the avenues open in the 21st century bring women joy, some bring its opposite; often they just mean more hours worked, fewer hours slept, new sets of fears and anxieties alongside new opportunities for accomplishment, pleasure and pride — in other words, the range of feeling and experience that comprise a typical day, a week, a year, a life. It is this daily, varied reality that makes me wish we could stop using happiness, or perfection, as the yardstick by which we evaluate our lives, and that we could stop gravely shaking our heads at every instance that a woman fails to measure up.
” Screw happiness - Feminism - Salon.com