Money, Freedom and the Art of Happy Living

New post on
- Peergroup and happiness
- The Welfare Paradox
- A frugal trip to Northern Germany
and many more can be found here.

In the previous post, we were discussing the money and time-consuming aspect of having a TV.

Now let's look on what happiness economics has to say on watching TV:

Source of the following is the book "Glück - die Sicht der Ökonomie" from the swiss professor Bruno Frey, who was one of the first to start scientific research on the measurement and causes of happiness.(English version here). Highly recommended reading for those who speak German.On his website there are a pile of publications to download in English as well, however mostly very scientific papers and more complicated to read. I happend to hear an excellent lecture of Prof.Frey at the Ludwig-Maximilans-University of Munich in 2001 or so - another great leap on my journey to more good days to live.

First of all, average TV consumption is massive throughout the world:

3h 30min for the average German.

Even more, 4h 50min, for the average US citizen.

That's a hell of a lot of time!

Let's make some comparisons:
...Continue on my main blog: www.gooddaytolive.net...

Seen at Rila Monastery in Bulgaria - a great place to get some distance between you and your job.


Saving is a key concept for anybody who strives for a frugal life.

Saving can add a lot of freedom and control to your life, because it means to think about what you really need, and to do spending and consumption more consciously. And it can free you from the rat-race, as it will curb your need to ever increase your income.

However, I am not a friend of saving on its own sake, and I am so far not yet fully convinced by the concept of early retirement extreme (ERE), which discussed a lot in the frugal community.

I sure respect this approach, and I find it very stimulating reading about it, as it teaches a lot on how to renounce unnecessary consumption and wasting money. But I see certain risks in ERE as well and generally in relying too much on saving alone.

Here are a few of my doubts:
...continue reading at my main blog

Climb the pyramid of needs. (seen in Palenque, Mexico)

As mentioned in my initial post, I started seriously and more or less systematically thinking on how to live a happy, financially independent and free life quite a long time ago.

But when I really go back, it probably all started when I was at school, 17 years old, and we studied "Maslow's hierarchy of needs" in Ethics/Philosophy-Education.

(I really like the German school system btw. It is often said that school and university take too long in Germany and people learn too much "unnecessary" stuff, but that's not true. Many of the things I learned proved to be quite helpful in a way one would not easily have expected. Maslow is one of them.)

And here is what Maslow said, what deeply impressed my that time and made me set the goal for climbing up his "pyramid" as high as I possibly could:

Maslow sais that human needs are arranged in a pyramid, with the most basic and necessary-for-bare-living needs being at the bottom, followed by more and more sophisticated needs further up.

The stages of Maslow's pyramid are:

1) Physiological Needs (food, water, sex etc.)

2) Security Needs (secure body, property, securing enough food, security from threats, having money)...

...continue reading in my main blog...

	It’s time to come to the topic of downshifting which plays an important role in any strategy to get happy! What is meant by downshifting? Well, basically what it says:
(Why not be the lady in the back once in a while and let others row if they want to?)

For a moment step back and see your life and your potential as a car. OK, now everybody is imagining himself a fancy racing-car with shiny bumpers (whereas some of us might be more like a trucks or a middle-class commuter car, or a heavy-duty family station wagon…but that’s all right).

So, imagine the car running at the top of its maximum speed for all the time, years and years. This might be fast and funny, and it might seem adventurous at first: Life rushes by, things are moving, money comes in, careers are made.

But now time goes by, hours, days, weeks, months pass all at max speed. What happens? First, our car will eat away gasoline like crazy. Then it starts to wear off. Eventually the concentration of the driver will diminish. When traffic gets thicker it really gets dangerous, and the likelihood of a severe accident is suddenly a real threat! One moment of distraction, and our car might come off course, sliding heavily or even crush into something unexpected.

And that’s what’s happening to an ever full-power life as well. After the first thrill, you will lose concentration. You will burn up your energy, your body will start to wear of, your health will be affected and when times get tough you might lack additional resources and things might get really dangerous for you.

So consider well your speed!

I don’t say you have to creep along like a snail on the highways of life, letting everybody overtake you right and left. But again, the middle way seems intelligent:
Shift down to a moderate gear in general. Do put in a race every now and then if you feel like some thrill, but don’t run on high speed all the time!
This way you will not burn our quickly, you will easily catch up with the hectic fellows a bit later, you will be able to concentrate and stay on track for a much longer time.

Some people will say you are selfish, but thats wrong. It's them who are selfish. Because they will be the ones with the burn-outs, the heart-attacks and the need for extensive care within 10 or 20 years time, when you will still be independent and happily kickin'!

This is important.

Because life is not a sprint - It's a marathon.

Cheers,
Woodpecker