In discussing this paradox with several people (including my own mother), I have come to this conclusion—neither one works long term.

For a moment, I’d like to back track and see how we got here. Years ago—40 to 50 now, a woman’s sole job was to stay at home, cook, clean, and basically take care of her family. If a woman married, she was expected to be caretaker of children (and if she didn’t marry, then something must be wrong with her). This was a woman’s role. Period.

Then came women’s movement, and leaders said, “Family isn’t important, you are. Go out, pursue your goals, we will set up daycares and push concept of year round school so that you can.”

The problem with these two approaches is that following either one to its extreme throws life out of balance. After lengthy discussions, I have come to following conclusion: once you get married and have kids, there are three relationships that must be maintained. The first is with yourself. You cannot be all things to everyone else if you are not something to yourself.

This is trap that many teenagers fall into—if I can just get married and have kids, then I’ll be happy. They believe (as society taught for many years) that having a family will automatically fill void they feel in their lives. It will not. What too often happens to these women is they get family, two kids, husband, and dog. Then they look up, bleary-eyed from too many nights of missed sleep, and they say, “I don’t understand. This was supposed to make me happy.”

Boredom, loneliness, and frustration set in, and pretty soon, woman begins to believe that if she was just not married, if she just didn’t have kids, then her life would really be wonderful. Some go so far as to actually detach from family unit—emotionally or physically. But that isn’t answer either. The answer lies within. The woman must find ways and schedule time to pursue those activities that are important to her family or no family. In this way she can nurture relationship she has with herself.

The 80/20 Principle or Pareto Principle was discovered in 1897 by an Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto while he was searching for patterns of wealth and income in England.

What he found was that 80 percent of wealth was enjoyed by only 20 percent of population. Additionally, it was consistent in different countries and in different times.

This has been found in present day as well and in almost any activity that we perform, business or otherwise.

In other words, 80 percent of your results in a given activity, are generated by 20 percent of your input or effort. Just same, 80 percent of revenue or profits are generated by 20 percent of your efforts or sales.

The 80/20 relationship can also easily be documented in personal achievement and happiness. Most people have never taken time to count their achievements or much less figure out what makes them happy. If they did, they would have realized that there are very few things that contribute to most of their happiness. They would also have found that there are very few things that they have done that has resulted in most of their achievements.