—Sigmund Freud, on what a person should be able to do well1 MOST OF US are more prosperous than ever before. We own more. We’re able to get terrific deals. Yet the deepest anxieties of this prosperous age concern aspects of our lives that can’t be bought. Many of us worry about the erosion of family, about our own inadequacies as spouses or parents, about the difficulty of sustaining genuine friendships, about the brittleness of our communities, and about the challenge of keeping intact our own integrity. Paid work is demanding more of our time, often more emotional energy and psychological preoccupation. As noted, the typical American is working 350 more hours a year than the typical European, more hours than the Japanese. And this feverish pace doesn’t even include the time taken up with the ever more ubiquitous intrusions on personal life—phones, faxes, beepers, e-mails, business trips. Nor does it account for the preoccupations, exhilarations, and anxieties that overflow paid work and flood the rest of waking life and sometimes even sleep.
