Beyond Happy: Women, Work, and Well-Being

4

Be Grateful

“He is a man of sense who does not grieve for what he has not, but rejoices in what he has.”—Epictetus

ON OCTOBER 23, 2014, Jennifer Lockwood-Shabat told her story to a room full of people gathered at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C., for the Washington Area Women’s Foundation Leadership Luncheon. She grew up in a small town in Vermont where her father worked as a physician’s assistant and her mother was a medical transcriptionist at the same VA hospital. When she was 10 years old, the hospital faced financial problems and both of her parents were laid off.

Her father turned to alcohol, working only sporadically, so her mother ...