NOT BUYING IT! 2015 - A consumer holiday

GreyQueen

I've seen in the past, and am concerned in the present, about a lot of people I know, overworking themselves into ill-health. Some are acquaintances and some are dear friends. What I see is that as you move through into your thirties and beyond, particularly as family responsibilities accrue (children and/ or spouses/ siblings/ aging parents) you can't keep going at life like a bull at a gate.

I see a pattern of clever, hard-working ambitious people who give their all, and then some, to a career. They overdo life to the point where their health progressively weakens, and they get more and more episodes of illness, and sometimes develop life-changing chronic illnesses.

I'm not saying that they wouldn't have become chronically ill with a less-pressured lifestyle, because that's unknowable by anybody. But I do see a constant drain of vitality which, if you were to express it on a graph, would look like a long decline interspersed with sudden down-legs representing illnesses. And never reversing those losses.

And what I also see is how readily employers in the private sector and the public sector move to disciplinary action against the sick, even if the sickness has been largely caused by their own unreasonable demands. I see good people getting chewed up and spat out, and I've known people to die less than a week after retirement.

I think we need to look into our own hearts and ask ourselves whether we're working to live or living to work? How much do we need beyond shelter, food and basic comforts, how much of the extra income is being spent to provide distractions from the discomfort of never being home to do our own stuff. Are we buying presents when we should be giving our presence to our loved ones?

We all have different lifestyles and demands on our time and energies, as well as different interests and preoccupations, which is as it should be. But we can be united in the wish to live life more thoughtfully, rather than mindlessly doing whatever best suits the marketeers and advertisers, just because they want our money.

If you sell your time for money, everything you spend is part of your life's energy. Rich or poor, you cannot create more life for yourself. If I factor in the time I don't spend working but get paid for (i.e. holiday) and the time getting ready for work and shutting down after it, one hour of my time is worth £10 in my hand.

So, I price things in hours or fractions of hours. I talk to people for a living. Most are lovely and some are horrible, so many of my hours have the potential to be fraught; I don't part with a tenner lightly, believe me.;)

[Deleted User]

Grey Queen - That's an amazing post. Here here to all you've said.
I've cut down my hours over the past 7years and am happier. I love my Monday morning lay in feeling. No more rushing for me.
I guess I'm going to have to be strong and tell everyone theyre going to have less presents and more presence from me in 2015 .....
Too many materialistic people around me... Who think of themselves and what they want instead of what others need. Maybe I should declutter them too :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Bathory

GreyQueen: That is a real thought provoking post you have just wrote and it has struck a chord with me. When I worked full time I remember the scorn poured over staff for going off sick, I had cold after cold and then went down with a bad chest infection, courtesy of an average 4-5 hour daily commute. I still got put on a warning, nothing was ever said of all the good that people did there or any thanks for turning up sick (and then spreading it to everyone else). T'was all about monitoring, analysing and stats - the company really couldn't care less.

Plans went up in the air today, was supposed to meet a friend but instead I had to dash to hospital as my elderly mum got taken in last night and is very ill. It made me think even more about what is really important in life and it ain't blummin shopping for s**t no more. I had to cut through the city to get home as she lives a way from me and I don't drive, it was so, so busy. People were just weighed down with bags. It was thick in fog going back but I was so glad to be away from the crowds.

GreyQueen

If you look at it philosophically, in about 80 years time, max, everyone who knows you will be dead. The sum and total of the mark which most of us will leave on this world will be our effects on others.

Some will paint masterpieces, compose music which will delight for generations, lay out fantastic gardens or build wonderful things.

Most of us will lead humbler lives and our influence, good or ill, will be on our families and our friends and neighbours. A kindness can be remembered fondly for a lifetime, a cruelty likewise lives on.

We will be remembered as a series of anecdotes, as a few photos, the set of a grandmother's eyes in a grandchild's face. People you never met will shelter under that tree you planted.

You might be recalled fondly in anecdote as a sharp dresser, a lively dancer, a good cook and hostess, a loving Mum or Dad or Nanna. I don't think people will be recalling whether you had charity shop curtains or bespoke, whether you were mink or crimplene. They won't know if you had a PS3 or a PS4, or even know what those things were and why it mattered.

I saw a cartoon online a few mins ago, St Peter at the pearly gates telling someone that you can't take it with you and that includes your i-phone.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

mumto2monkeys_2

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

The teaching staff at fee paying schools work just as hard and under the same pressure as at any other school, the difference being that as parents are paying they think that means that the offspring will get the grade the parents want them to, regardless of the offsprings ability levels and they don't hesitate to hector the staff to try to get what they want. DD1 was even told by one irate parent that she'd paid the £200 for the Bronze D of E for her child and that assessors couldn't fail the child and the group as they'd paid for him to pass!!! Teaching is not at all a sinecure these days no matter what sector you are employed in is it?

I don't dispute this at all! I know all teachers will be working incredibly hard regardless of sector. What I'm saying is I honestly believe that if we had droves of experienced and well-regarded staff leaving from private schools because it was all getting too much, and students were routinely being taught by unqualified teachers brought in to replace them, some serious review might take place of what the heck is happening in our schools.

I teach in a challenging inner city comp; we have more than our fair share of unqualified staff, exchange teachers from other countries who need to learn the system and supply staff. Nobody ever challenges why we can't recruit or keep teachers. This isn't my first school; my last school was outstanding for every aspect and also struggled to retain staff - people couldn't cope with the work-load.

I'm 12 years into my career, outstanding, highly regarded and desperate to leave. It is my vocation, I am really good at it, surely this should not be the case?

I can't, for the life of me, see why nobody is doing anything about this state of affairs. I'm reading through all of this thread and the numbers of people on here who teach or have left teaching stating how ill it made them is simply shocking. I know I'm on the cusp of this too and it is soul-destroying. I don't know what we can do about it as a profession. I know that I'm going to embrace this thread and do my best to reduce my professional commitments before I go under.

mumto2monkeys_2

GreyQueen wrote: »

I've seen in the past, and am concerned in the present, about a lot of people I know, overworking themselves into ill-health. Some are acquaintances and some are dear friends. What I see is that as you move through into your thirties and beyond, particularly as family responsibilities accrue (children and/ or spouses/ siblings/ aging parents) you can't keep going at life like a bull at a gate.

I see a pattern of clever, hard-working ambitious people who give their all, and then some, to a career. They overdo life to the point where their health progressively weakens, and they get more and more episodes of illness, and sometimes develop life-changing chronic illnesses.

I'm not saying that they wouldn't have become chronically ill with a less-pressured lifestyle, because that's unknowable by anybody. But I do see a constant drain of vitality which, if you were to express it on a graph, would look like a long decline interspersed with sudden down-legs representing illnesses. And never reversing those losses.

And what I also see is how readily employers in the private sector and the public sector move to disciplinary action against the sick, even if the sickness has been largely caused by their own unreasonable demands. I see good people getting chewed up and spat out, and I've known people to die less than a week after retirement.

I think we need to look into our own hearts and ask ourselves whether we're working to live or living to work? How much do we need beyond shelter, food and basic comforts, how much of the extra income is being spent to provide distractions from the discomfort of never being home to do our own stuff. Are we buying presents when we should be giving our presence to our loved ones?

We all have different lifestyles and demands on our time and energies, as well as different interests and preoccupations, which is as it should be. But we can be united in the wish to live life more thoughtfully, rather than mindlessly doing whatever best suits the marketeers and advertisers, just because they want our money.

If you sell your time for money, everything you spend is part of your life's energy. Rich or poor, you cannot create more life for yourself. If I factor in the time I don't spend working but get paid for (i.e. holiday) and the time getting ready for work and shutting down after it, one hour of my time is worth £10 in my hand.

So, I price things in hours or fractions of hours. I talk to people for a living. Most are lovely and some are horrible, so many of my hours have the potential to be fraught; I don't part with a tenner lightly, believe me.;)

I think this sums up the reflection I've gone through over the past week really nicely. I have fibromyalgia - I can hardly move on a morning because of stress. I intend to be more mindful and put time into myself and OS to reduce the pressure that I've allowed myself to be put under all because I wanted a bigger house/car/holiday...

Rowan9

So many interesting posts. Well done everyone.
Mumto2monkeys, thinking of you. I didn't work full time when my kids were small but was a full time lecturer a few years ago and got out because I could see me being stuck in such a well paid job with 11 weeks of hols a year and good pension. But at what cost? Worked out that it wasn't for me. I love simplicity, Mindfulness, silence, walks in nature. I also love my family and friends. I work full time but not teaching. Although I'm tired when I get home, I don't have that drained exhaustion.
I'm really enjoying reading everyone's experiences. I love that this is such a supportive little community. Also loving seeing posters from the old simplifying thread ....seven days wonder and Aris, amongst others!
Watching a programme about Torridon just now so signing off and not multi-tasking!
W

[Deleted User]

Hmm. I'm having trouble detaching myself from clothing I don't want or need anymore. All I keep thinking to myself is "I paid good money for this".
Times have been hard for me. Any advise for letting go of stuff would be appreciated.

GreyQueen

ImDoingItForMe wrote: »

Hmm. I'm having trouble detaching myself from clothing I don't want or need anymore. All I keep thinking to myself is "I paid good money for this".
Times have been hard for me. Any advise for letting go of stuff would be appreciated.

Been there, done that, got the tee-shirt. It's hard to let things go, when you fear you may need them again and not be able to afford them.

We all have the I paid good money for this thingy from time to time. I think the key is the word paid; it's the past tense. Unless you can time travel, you can't go back and reverse that decision. It's done and dusted.

You can't get it all back and, even if you manage to sell whatever it is, you can't get more than a fraction of it back. Pennies on the pound for clothing, if you're lucky.

I'd regard it as an experience to try to learn from in one way. Like saying to myself; OK, this didn't work out, I barely wore this thing, why was that? Was it a foolish choice of an unflattering style or colour, was I kidding myself about my lifestyle and bought something for Fantasy Me to wear, was I thinner or plumper or trying to recapture my youth and ended up looking mutton-dressed-as-lamb? Was I buying in a hurry or seduced by a heavy sales discount?

If you do a bit of analysis, you may be able to avoid repeating errors of judgement, which could be giving you ongoing benefits.

In terms of letting it go, to say a chazzer, perhaps you could focus on what the individual charity does, such as a cancer or heart disease charity, there are going to be few of us who haven't known someone touched by those illnesses. Or perhaps some animal sanctuary or childrens' hospice is dear to your heart? Could you focus on allowing the value you see in the item to be realised for the good cause, and to think of the pleasure the item will give someone else, a stranger who could be going through hard times right now, and who would be thrilled to own this thing of yours?

If nothing else, think about how repeatedly seeing this item is causing you to experience stress and negativity, and how pleasant it would be to have it gone and the ability to selectively forget it ever happened.

And, as I type this, I have reached a decision about a jacket at home, which is nearly immaculate, was bought heavily discounted and isn't the right thing for my needs, and was replaced but not removed from the premises.

I shall release it next week to serve someone else.

Islandmaid

GreyQueen - very interesting reading.

As my Nan said, no-one ever wished they,d worked harder in their last moments on earth.

I work for a Government agency, over the past 8 years things have gone downhill rapidly, more for less mentality has crushed the light out of alot of my colleagues, including me, who loved our jobs, felt we were truely giving back to the Public - now we,re just a series of ticks on somebodies notepad.
I went PT at the begining of September to save my sanity more than anything else, and am very grateful for being able to finacially - don,t get me wrong, its hard, and we have had to cut back on an awful lot - but its just stuff and now I get to help my MIL on a regular basis, take an active part in my childrens lives, I was a single parent for most of their lives and chose to work rediculous hours to provide for them, served a purpose, but wish i,d given them more of me. And I am a much nicer person in general, instead of the stressy hellcat I was becoming.

Anyhoo - to enable me to continue as PT I have given up my stuff in exchange for time, and although it was weird at the begining, i,m getting used to not having 'stuff' and appreciating the small things in life, like chatting over my youngest son,s day with him when he comes home from school and the HM cake etc is always appreciated.

My current project is flogging my unused stuff to pay for a gift for my eldest,s 21st - i,m using my paypal account like a savings account at the moment and have 'saved' £270 after fee,s so far in 3 months - well chuffed..

Will stop burbling now