Skip to main content

You can buy happiness

This is the book we're reading at the moment. The catchy title You Can Buy Happiness (and It's Cheap) sums up the theme that the best things in life don't cost much. By simplifying and focussing on what actually brings happiness, we can do less of the work we hate and live more of the life we love.


There are 3 sections - The paradox of stuff (eg. the stuff you own owns you), Finding happiness through simple living, and Buying happiness.

Even if you don't want to be exactly like the author, the micro-actions at the end of each chapter can help you live a life that's more "conscious and connected, sustainable and sustaining, heartfelt and happy".

I thoroughly recommended it.

..it's easy to accept culturally defined yet faulty ideas of 'happiness' that are based on acquiring material wealth [but the] question isn't 'What do I need to support my current lifestyle?' the question is 'What do I want most out of life and what lifestyle supports that best?'

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How to retire on a boat at 40

Irish Leonard explains how his family of four lives on a sailboat. No inheritance. No lottery. Just not wasting money - or his time. How does he afford it? He explains by showing the average Irish household expenses, converted into hours worked. Here's the result shown as a working week: We work a lot to pay for our cars. As he puts it: Almost 20% of our working lives is spent so that we can afford to get to our working lives. So Leonard eliminates or massively reduces most expenses. On the family boat, he sails "in a climate that requires no heating or air conditioning, doesn't own a car and generates what energy he needs using solar panels". Remove the unnecessary costs and you remove most of the need to work. He calculates that we can feed and clothe our family on 5 days work per month, or the equivalent. By contrast the average Irish couple devotes 19 hours a day to work, including commuting. Why all this focus on time? In Leonard's words "I...

Big motivator for small living

It's been a while between posts here - mainly because we've been moving house. It's been a real motivator for downsizing. Packing each and every item we owned, really makes me wish there were fewer of them. Moving everything from the old apartment to the new one made me envious of those people who live in a "tiny house on wheels". For them moving house simply means towing it to a new location. No packing required. The whole process has reaffirmed our commitment to owning less stuff. So we're going to be intentional about downsizing. It will be an ongoing activity. My environmental heart couldn't stomach a spontaneous dumping of things into the garbage, but it's also more fun this way. Selling things online brings in some handy pocket money. Giving items away is also a great community activity, whether it is to friends and family, to charity or to people in the neighbourhood. I'm looking forward to it as a lifestyle rather than a task to do....

The joy of selling - 3 ways it's great

My friend Stephen asked about charging for things. He felt bad about charging someone $30 for an artwork - even if it cost him much more. Should he feel bad? No. If someone wants to pay the price, they obviously value it highly (at least more than the $30). If he's willing to sell, he must value it less than $30. So it's going to the person who will get more joy out of it. Why not just give it to them for free? Money is a convenient way to measure value. It's also a way to share the joy. If Steve gives the art away then he no longer gets to enjoy it - so is worse off. By selling it for $30, he is happier with the $30, and the buyer is happier with the artwork. The end result of the sale is that both people are happier than they were before. Here are 3 reasons it's better to sell than to giveaway and how it helps you declutter and minimise better. 1. Money (most obviously). It might just be a few bucks here and there - but it adds up. My wife and I often sell an i...