It took many years for someone approaching midlife, average person like me to understand that happiness is when we take things as simple as possible. Academics, psychologists, motivation speakers, politicians etc. all have grand or complex theories of happiness. Why can’t it be simply a simple life?
I have worked decades (2 is considered plural) in an intense, relatively high pay job and always looking forward to the next promotion. All these in the name of providing for my family, seemingly to earn enough for a good life. Then I realized my expenditure of time and effort, the accumulation of stresses and anxieties, and deteriorated health all for that fat paycheck, are NOT giving me a good life. Recently, I have been through a series of anxiety attacks, angst from work, maybe also signs of mid-life crisis and early memory loss perhaps. I simply decided I am just going to drop it all, of course with the full support of my family whom will also be living simply because of the potential reduction (or loss) of income.
But before quitting the high paying job, I need to at least build a simple sustainable income, plus some kind of work that will not lock me 9 to 5. The kind of work that gives me joy regardless of pay. I will also need to design our simplified lives around this, and yet be happy. In gist, lifestyle design to unlock being tethered to work and live the life I have wanted and for my family.
Given time, the first thing I wanted to do besides spending time with my family is to log my simple thoughts and share them. When working out what I wanted to share here, the central theme will then be presenting my simple thoughts and experiences and how this design of mine is taking shape. How I approach doing things simply such as travel planning, education, financial planning (incredibly simple ones) for that sustainable income and random stuff if you don’t mind. Guided by Parkinson’s Law of triviality and Selective Ignorance, I will attempt to make our life simpler and happier.
Writing is never my forte, my language grades can bearly make it acedemically. Luckily buoyed by Maths and Science, I am that typical technical graduate. But strangely I enjoy penning down thoughts. I hope* you will enjoy reading my posts as much as I enjoy writing them. No complicated stuff, I guarantee.
gobassky.
* did you have a boss who keeps saying “hope is not a strategy”? … irks me a little because life without hope is scary.