Posted by Tim Stobbs on March 10, 2009
Another week and some more links. I hope you enjoy a few of these.
Brip Brap thinks something has changed.
The Financial Blogger thinks we are nothing but slaves to the rat race.
Syd got another great post on choosing happiness.
Oh my gods, there is some good news about this recession!
Preet points out the practice of sell it or your fired. I’ve personally seen this one before and it is not that pretty.
Oh and to make anyone feel better who lost your job. Read this and realize it could be worse.
Posted by Tim Stobbs on March 9, 2009
So when did you sell out on your childhood dreams? Noticed I asked ‘when’ and not ‘if’. Well that is because I’ve run into so very few people that are living their dreams. What happen to us that this is so common now?
I’ll offer myself up as an example I could have chosen another path that was better in line with my creative side, but no I was practical instead and took an engineering degree. I chose it because I knew it was a more sellable degree that offered a higher and consistent income. Ironically I have done very little true engineering work during my career, perhaps a third of my career so far, but that doesn’t matter it still got me a steady pay cheque.
Yet why did I do it? I think perhaps because in our society we value financial security over happiness. Happiness is a nice ideal, but people are typically more driven to pick the choice that offers financial security. Yet is that security an illusion. If you don’t believe me ask any one of the thousands of auto workers that have been laid off recently. I’m fairly sure a year ago they thought their jobs were secure.
So why do we sell out if the security isn’t there? I think we do it because we want to take the easy way out. We want the arrangement of show up and do your work and we send you a cheque every two weeks or twice a month. To do what truly makes us happy would entail a lot of self examination and likely hard work to make that dream come true. Then after all that you wouldn’t even be sure how much you would be making. It would be a questionable investment of time for an unknown rate of return. We would be living on what we produced and none of us is sure enough of our talent to make that bet. Our self doubts haunt us so we take the easy way instead.
Yet how many of us are really suited for this whole slave away at a job we don’t like for pay cheque? What would happen if more of us took a risk on happiness? Would the world change or would every look the same except for a lot of happier people? I don’t know.
So what’s your story? What did you sell out for or are you one of the rare ones who are living your dreams? If you feel like sharing, leave a comment.
Posted by Tim Stobbs on March 6, 2009
According to a lot of smart people the world is ending. Melting ice caps? Check. Shifting climate conditions? Check. Economic collapse? Are we already in that one? Ok close enough, check. So with all this going on some people say “We have to do X to save the planet.”
I hate that phrase. I mean every time I hear it I almost say “Screw saving the planet!” to the overly arm waving person telling me what to do. The whole ‘save the planet’ phrase has a certain religious over tone that just makes my skin itch. I want to tell them that you know what we don’t need to save the planet. Why? Because regardless of what we do some life will likely exist on this rock after we have managed to drive ourselves into extinction. We may be screwed but the planet will continue on just fine without us. It doesn’t need to be saved.
Instead let’s be more practical shall we.
- Do you like your life? As you haven’t committed suicide and your reading this I’m going to assume your answer is: yes.
- If you have off spring, do you like them (most of the time)? As they are not murdered by you yet, let’s assume that answer is yes.
- Would you like to have more money and likely be happier? I will assume you would like that.
So here’s the trick to be richer and happier: STOP WASTING STUFF. That’s it and it cover every possible issue or concept in environmental protection that you need to act on. From ‘should you buy a smaller car next time’ to ‘using a reusable bag at the store’ today. No complex ethics or soul searching required. You don’t even need to understand the issues all that much. All you need to do is ask two questions: am I wasting stuff? How can I waste less stuff?
So save the guilt and screw saving the planet. Be entirely selfish and be happier and richer instead. Now isn’t that a little easier?
