Liked this post by Leanne.
This week’s #Friday Reflection was to choose a quote that has touched me this week” and I thought of the one above about contentment – such an overlooked emotion in today’s “give me give me” world of discontent. It seems everyone is looking for the next big promotion, the next big holiday, the next big romance or the next big crisis to keep things exciting. People constantly complain about the cost of living and how much they need to earn to live a life that they think is satisfactory. Contentment gets lost in the process.
What I’m coming to appreciate is you can be happy with much less than you think. Young people need two incomes to get established and to ground themselves in their careers and to gain the experience they need to go with their qualifications. Those of us who are older can probably kick back a little and smell the roses if we choose to. The constant pressure to earn more so you can spend more seems to be what drives this society we live in, but we can step back from that and claim some peace and contentment by choosing to be content with less.
Many, many years ago Henry David Thoreau wrote this quote:
Perhaps we can take a page out of his book and appreciate what we already have without the need to constantly add to our possessions or our travel itinerary. By all means lets work if we like working, lets keep the wheels of commerce turning……but if you’re like me, you might be getting a little tired of going to that thankless job to earn money to spend on things that maybe you don’t really need.
Reducing my work days by half has made no discernible difference to our quality of life. We still have all the food we need, we still have enough to go out and enjoy ourselves and we can still pay our bills with a bit left over. My motto has always been to spend less than you earn – and to pay off the mortgage as the first priority. This has been our salvation in so many ways, to be debt free is such an amazing achievement and to stay that way is even more pleasant. I’m prepared to sacrifice a few luxuries if it means I am not at the 9-5 grind every day – and the contentment that comes with having more time to myself outweighs any loss of income.
