Money, Freedom and the Art of Happy Living

Disclaimer: This post handles jealousy and is based on my German/European experience. Jealousy is said to be a more common emotion in German society than elsewhere, so I would be interested how your experience is...

Your decision

Those of you experimenting with downshifting while working as an employee in a company might know the situation:

After thinking a lot about your work life, your consumption and the right balance in your life, you decided to downshift.

You decreased you costs of living, you found out about the pleasures life has to offer at little costs if you have a bit of spare-time. You understood the 80/20 rule, saying that 80% of the result are reached by 20% of the effort and that the remaining 20% of results need 80% of the effort.

You found out that after all you have enough or even too much money if you only manage to spent it the right way, but that you have too little time, to really enjoy today.

So you do the obvious, you cut down your work time as far as possible and you get some healthy mental distance to your employed work. You still do a good job but you decided to avoid being pushed and getting stressed by others.

You are ready to pay the price or are paying it already in form of less chances to get promoted or to get a rise. And you maybe earn already a bit less by not having over hours to hand in for cash as instead you are taking free time.

But that's fine, your life is much better than before, as your increased happiness by having less stress and more time far outweighs the marginal loss in income.


If the waves get too high at work - you'd better get out of the water before your energy is gone... (Waves seen in Malta)

Will others accept your decision?

But what's really annoying is your colleagues, who keep on mocking when you are leaving at 5 instead of at 7 as them. Or when you take a day off again, converting over-hours into holiday.

You might have expected that your bosses will complain, and you are prepared for that. But your colleagues?! Why the hell...
...continue reading at my main blog.

Today is May the 1st!

This is again a good day to live, especially here in Germany where it is a public holiday.

Is it in your country as well?!

If not, that should be introduced. At least I find the idea quite nice and appreciate it very much, that the "day of work", as it is called here in Germany, is actually a day of not-working!

This is a good day to pause and think about the role work plays in your life.

Initially for most people work or labour was just a means to survive. Later a means to consume and to afford some nice things and a bit of spare time on top.

And today? Well, we earn much more than we actually need for living and eating.

Let's look at some data from Germany (Source here, in German)

Item	Work needed 1950 (h)	Work needed 2009 (h)	Difference
1kg bread	0:27	0:11	-60%
10 eggs	2:01	0:08	-93%
1l milk	0:19	0:03	-80%
1kg coffee beans	2 days	0:19	-99%
Suit	4 days	17:00	-80%
TV	16 days	2 days	-87%

This list could easily be continued to most products that we really need for living today.

So, instead of what most people think, life in general does not get more expensive over time.

On the contrary, it got massively cheaper in the last decades, and probably in many aspects continues to do so. Looking at the data you can see that you can easily afford everything that your grandparents had by working much less - let's say not more than 30% of the time - than your grandparents had to work for it.

The problem thus is not that we have too little money but we work too much because we think that we must have much more things to make us happy.

Instead of being happy with a simple TV, a basic car as one had in the 50s and furniture you would use for decades, today we are talked into a brand-new TV each 5 years, 2 cars with oversized motors, cloths that are thrown away after wearing them only twice and loads of lifestyle-crap that is forgotten a week after you bought it. A lot of this desires are not coming from within ourselfes but probably from outside via peer-group pressure and TV ads.

Well, I don't say that all modern products are bad.

Not at all. Me and my family for example fancy very much some nice holiday-trips every now and then, and I enjoy the variety of books, films, good food and kitchen machines my grandparents weren't able to possess.

However, again there is the middle-way:

Find out what are the basic goods that you really need in life. Then think about what extra add-ons you like to have, add-ons that really increases your happiness on a long term basis.

And - important - find out for yourself!

Don't let others or advertising influence you. Think hard about things you bought and whether you enjoyed them in a sustainable way or whether they only gave you a short kick (as e.g. cloths do for me).

And then cut out all the crap, concentrate on basic needs and these few add-ons, and you will find that probably you can afford all of this and still work much less than your grandparents did.

Now the tough next step is to convince your employer that you want to cut down to 4 days a week from tomorrow on - but maybe you find a way!

So enjoy your day of work by spending a few thoughts on how to actually work less in the future!

Woodpecker

Practical example for down-shifting:

Didn’t everybody tell you, you ought to make it to the top by any means if you can? That the top is where you have power, where you are free, where you have control and the like?

Forget it, that’s complete bullshit.

The truth is:

On the way to realizing the last bit of your entire maximum potential, you will have a lot of trouble, as you will have no reserves at the end. You will be stuck in political games or annoying clients you never have imagined, you will have bad sleep and no free time left as all your resources have to go into your career. You will lose valuable social ties, your health will decline and you might even find out that you cannot enjoy things anymore, which you used to like before.

This is the old 80/20 rule: 80 percent of the work can be done with 20% of your effort; the last 20% of the work require 80% of the effort.

So whoever tells you that you must always give 100%, let him do so if he wants but don’t follow his advice, because typically the additional returns aren't worth the trouble.

Better downshift:

Find out the max level you could reach in your job (that will be determined by your education, your cleverness, your skills, but also by your social status, maybe your looks, your connections and so on). Do this in a realistic way, don’t cheat yourself and don’t count on luck, “justice” or some other act of god.

Now take that maximum potential and subtract one level from it. This (or less) is what you should aim for. E.g. if you really think you could become a senior executive if you give 100%, you should better target being a lower grade executive and in return spend only let's say 50% of your effort.

If you think you could be number 2 in your area of business, you should target being number 3 or 4 and save a lot of effort because the last mile is always the hardest.

This holds true for private matters as well. If you could squeeze in visiting 6 cities on your holiday trip, try to do only 3 or 4.

That way you will reach your goals relatively comfortably as you always have back-up resources at hand and your skills and nerves will not be stretched too much.

And you might very often find that with only 20% effort you can reach 80% of your maximum potential. No joke!

Cheers,

Woodpecker

A nice day at the beach.
Waves are splashing, the sky is blue, a nice breeze is cooling the summer heat. You are sitting in an arm chair, listening to some good music on your mp3-player, reading a magazine or a good book.
There suddenly you are interrupted by a humming sound coming from your beach-bag!

It is your Blackberry, and while you try to keep on reading you think by yourself it could be very very important and it might be absolutely necessary that you react IMMEDIATELY, because if you don’t, your employer will go bust the other day, or even worse the economy of your country will instantly fall apart.
So you try to resist for a moment, you try to re-concentrate on the surf and the sun, but your relaxation is gone and 10 seconds later you grab the Blackberry and hectically open your post-box.
But it was only a colleague, sending a mail @all to ask if anyone wants to join for lunch.

Ah, Relax again....

...but 10 minutes later, same humming, same game.

This time it's your boss, apologizing only very briefly for contacting you in your well earned holidays, but it is VERY important.

...Relaxation gone.

You spend the rest of the day sending eMails, trying to remember if you messed up something and trying to calm down your girlfriend or wife who complains about you working in holidays.
Necessary?

Your employer might say YES:

This is a helpful and so-modern device, and you as a flexible, dynamic, so-modern young employee should use it to your own benefit, you stay updated and you don’t miss out.

I say its bullshit:

This is a modern type of ball and chain or shackle (Fussfessel), binding you to your work even in your well deserve some spare time. It's dragging you like Sauron’s Ring the ring-wraths in their sleepless death.
It forces you to never sleep and never rest without a spark of duty lingering still in your head. It ties you to the machine and keeps you in the middle of the rat-race with the most simple trick: Pretending it's for your own best. And pretending it underpins your Status and your Importance.

I tell you:

Get rid of this shackle and let others feel important!

If you are an employee most likely you are not important. But tell you what? It's great not to be important! Accept it and benefit from that fact! Because that means you can enjoy the sun and the company will not go bust, the world will not end if you cannot be reached by your employer. Forget about your employer when you are in holidays and look for somthing or somebody you are really important for.

I am resisting a Blackberry since I was first offered one 6 years ago by my then-boss. And you know what? It's great! When I am travelling for my company I can concentrate on my task, I don’t get distracted and annoyed by stuff happening at home. If I am in a meeting I listen, and if everybody else gets bored and starts typing on their blackberries, I still could join in and pull out my private cell-phone and play a game (which really is the same thing in the end).

I don't feel important, but I don't feel stressed either.

And when I am in holiday! Ahhhh…I enjoy the sun and the sound of the waves...!

Have fun,
Woodpecker