It’s interesting you should make the hippie connection to happiness.

Recently, I went on a weekend yoga/meditation retreat and lived with “hippies”.

It was amazing to meet such happy people who really had no interest in material things. They were just living the life they wanted and yoga/meditation just gave them an amazing serenity that you just don’t see in many people. Plus, the great vegan food.

Of course, if you live your life with passion and your job is your passion then you can still be happy. But we just need to balance that with other activities that keep us grounded such as time with our family and time with ourselves. It’s all about working out what makes us happy rather than believing we have to live our life in a certain way for other’s approval.

Imagine how much happy we would all be if we didn’t do things for approval.

Great thought-provoking article, David.

Marie-Claire Ross

But, downsizing and spending time with your family is something that you control. Also, I think society now recognizes that families and children are happier when they interact with their parents – rather than their parents be breadwinners.

In my own experience, I have worked for the same major bank in downtown Chicago for 9 years. For the last 2 years, they have allowed us to work from home full-time. It’s great! My commute from the suburbs to downtown Chicago used to be almost one and a half hours door-to-door, one way. So I was tied up for 3 hours a day commuting (it was by train, so I could read or relax, but it was still commuting time).

Now, I actually end up working an extra hour from home, and saving 2 hours a day. My employer and myself win. Also, my employer could consolidate buildings – saving on expensive downtown real estate.

I know people who make more money than I, but they have to travel every week, and work log hours, so they don’t spend time with their families.

I, on the other hand, work from home, and can spend breaks or my lunch with my wife and 4 year old son. Also, I was able to sell my car, and life is simpler with just one car.

For many years my partner has developed a reasonable business through internet trading and about 18 months ago I traded in corporate lifestyles to do much the same work but be based at home. It would be fair to say we do not have a large income and sometimes live week to week financially however we have a 2 year old daughter at home and I would not trade my current lifestyle for an extra 100k and thats truth!

Possibly through the fat cats falling and environmental issues taking centre stage over the last few years people are finally deciding that large incomes and portraying the image of having a large image is basically as unfulfilling as all those hippies said it would be years ago! I can certainly concur that a large salary package really didn’t equal time at home with the family. Call it laziness or selfiness but I often talk with my brother about this – he lives and works in Australia and is in construction. He earns very good money (better than I) but is up each morning at 5am and often works 7 days straight etc. I work 3-5 days per week, get up when I want, its usually earlyish with kids around but I can relax, have a cuppa, read the paper and start work when I feel like it.

I can’t imagine now going back into corporate world and having the monotony, the lack of feeling as you noted about how they treat you when I can operate by myself, work for whom and what I want to and only have myself to hold responsible if things aren’t going right – I will never be a millionaire thats for sure, but I guarantee Im a lot happier than most of them!

Cheers
Chris, New Zealand