Nuclear Autonomy

There is a story that my family tells about me when I was a little kid. I was about 4 years old, and shopping with my mother in a busy area of town. She was holding my baby sister, and reached out to me so that we could safely cross the street.

I pulled away.

My mother looked at me, and sternly said, “I need to hold your hand so that we can cross the street safely.”

And, using willful four-year-old logic, I replied, “I’ll hold my own hand.”

I promptly grabbed my right hand with my left hand and crossed the street next to my mother. She had no choice but to hold on to the back of my collar. We made it across the street safely, my mother rolling her eyes the entire way.

Apart from having an independent streak about a mile wide, there was also something else. The need for self-determination. The need for autonomy.

And, in people from 4 to 104, autonomy plays an important role in happiness. Autonomy is the freedom to make decisions without outside influence. It is self-governance.

To a certain level, many studies show that having sufficient money contributes to happiness. However, beyond a certain amount of income (income that meets all basic needs), happiness tends to drop off. Beyond the basics, more money can actually decrease happiness and lead to greater anxiety.

Independent of income, however, personal autonomy tends to increase people’s well-being. Having freedom decreases your chances of burnout, stress, and anxiety. There is an intrinsic satisfaction that comes with being able to make decisions that you want to make.

Which brings me to the 2024 World Happiness studies.

The Scandinavians were at the top of the pile yet again. Many people assume that this is mostly due to their generous and effective implementation of social benefits.

But another thing that came through in the studies, was the high importance these cultures placed on individual autonomy. And in my opinion, this is a really important thing.

During the early days of the pandemic, in addition to fear, we all had a sharp drop in our personal agency. We were told to stay home, to limit our interaction with others. And this combination of fear and loss of autonomy was pretty terrible. Particularly when it came to our ability to be with each other in person.

As the fears began to subside, and medical strides were made to decrease poor outcomes, we saw a slight return to normal.

But the impact that time had on us was unmistakable.

There were a lot of tough decisions that so many of us had to make. Families with children, women in particular, had to choose between working (outside of the home if they were deemed essential, at home if they could go remote) and taking care/supervising schoolwork of their kids. Our personal agency, our ability to make decisions for ourselves and our families was severely curtailed.

And, those decisions made without full autonomy continue to have an impact.

In my own life, I decided to make the decision to stay home for the sake of my son, who had to do e-learning. We didn’t have the option to hire a nanny and didn’t live near any family. I was fortunate enough to be able to retire at that time. If I had more autonomy, I may have continued to work longer and reached a slightly more comfortable financial position. And that has a real impact.

Having the ability to make our own decisions is critical to human happiness. Whether it’s something as big as a medical decision or something as trivial as what we’re eating for lunch, it’s human to desire a say in the matter.

One of my favorite documentaries is called The Babushkas of Chernobyl.

If you are too young to remember, there was a nuclear reactor meltdown in the town of Pripyat, in the former Soviet Union, at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The entire town was evacuated as rapidly as possible while crews worked to contain the problem. Radioactive particles heavily contaminated the town and the surrounding forests. The government prohibited people from returning.

But, in spite of being evacuated, some people snuck back in.

In spite of the risks. In spite of the barricades. People returned to their homes.

In the documentary, several older women (“Babushkas”) are shown living their daily lives in the contaminated area. They eat food they grow there. They drink the water. They eat fish they catch.

Why on earth would they go back to a hazardous situation?

None of them wanted to leave their homes. All of them wanted the right to decide how they would live for themselves. Even if it was downright dangerous.

Of course, this is an extreme example.  But I feel it exemplifies the primal need for autonomy. If none of the women had returned to their radioactive homes, they might avoid the risks of exposure to harmful particles. But if they couldn’t engage their personal agency about where they wanted to live, wouldn’t that lack of freedom be equally toxic? Wouldn’t these babushkas risk continual emotional pain after such sudden and permanent displacement?

I think they would.

The babushkas of Chernobyl are like all of us. We want the option to hold our own hand, so-to-speak. And whether we’re crossing the street, eating glow-in-the-dark tomatoes from our gardens, or just living out our lives, autonomy plays a huge role in happiness.

 

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