As other comments already stated and have stated, money should never be the goal, it's the middle. Having money allows you to not worry about some of those topics, or having more time for them. If you don't have more it means you must worry about that. Having money means you don't: you don't have to worry about rent, health insurance, paying for experiences, food, etc. It's true, you don't need that much money, but still.
Past being a millionaire or so, making money is a clicker game. It's something you do just for the fun of seeing number go up. And just like a clicker game, past a certain point you're no longer making the money through your own efforts, but by acquiring assets that can make the money for you (like buying the grandmas that bake cookies for you, etc.), so the game becomes determining the right mix of assets that let you acquire more, that you can then plow into more assets for even bigger growth.
The super rich aren't making more money because they think more money will buy them correspondingly more happiness. It's a game to them played at massive real-world scales.
I don't know, self-reported happiness seems like an awfully unreliable metric. For one, I've noticed that projecting unhappiness is much more of a faux pas in rich circles. On its own this could account for much of this relationship.
Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, is on the record saying he is 'not often happy.' Somehow I doubt he'd give up half his wealth to double his happiness, though that's just a guess based on his other obvious character flaws ;)
Well, considering the SpaceX IPO, I think that him giving up the majority of his wealth early on to make SpaceX employees hilariously rich worked out well for them
My favorite book about this is "The Happiness Trap," because it makes the simple point that we didn't evolve to be happy all of the time. It makes a really good case for learning to live with the range of emotions and suggests ways of creating a contented/good/whatever life with what you've got.
Time with my young adult children. They are all out of the house, recently, and there is nothing, and I mean NOTHING more valuable/meaningful to us than when they come home for a visit or we spend time out in the world.
I lived a short time in my 20s with friends a few blocks from my parents. When I returned to live with my parents for a short period the entire dynamic changed. You leave the house so you don't go to your room, you visit. I started talking more and listening to music with them. I really appreciated my parents more. I hope my relationship with my children will be the same.
What do you mean by listening to music with them? Like, sitting around in the living room playing each other's favorite songs? I don't think I've ever done that with my parents, my kids, or anyone really.
Listening to music with my young kids is a favorite. My wife and I also frequently invite other couples over to listen to vinyl and enjoy a cocktail or two.
We like vinyl just because it has the physicality to it but I think anything here is fine. It's the music and the shared experience.
I never enjoyed spending time with my late parents. I only did so out of a sense of obligation. I have no children and have never really given that choice a second thought.
Its interesting that people value their relationship with their children so much and I assume its due to a deep sense of connection with them, they being "flesh and blood" but I've never given that any weight. I feel much more connected to people who have had similar life experiences and ideas to myself, and that could be anyone. I have quite a few relatives who I've never met or met once and do not see because they are nothing like me.
I suspect this is mostly due to being pretty far out on the pointy bits of various bell curves.
It also depends on the parents and how they nurtured the relationship with the child as they grew up.
I had a a good relationship with mine growing up, and enjoyed visiting, talking and so on as I was an adult.
A good friend had it different. They were not good parents. He, much like you, visit out of obligation and not to get written out of the will quite frankly. If it was up to him he'd never see them again.
I actually have long disagreed with this sentiment -- I know people who don't want and never want kids, and they seem to totally comprehend the kind of love I have for my children. I also remember being a teenager and always kind of understanding the depth of the love my parents had for me (as in knowing "they love me implicitly, and they'd die for me, and they wish me so much happiness", and all the other trappings that I'd use to describe it with my own kids).
Being able to feel that love directly is, of course, a different story that's probably indeed pretty unique.
I think it is more than that though. Parenthood is a long, multi-year process full of hormones, self-reflection, and fundamental changes to your psyche. A non-parent can intellectually understand what happens and why, can emotionally understand or feel that love by swapping out kids with partners, pets, etc. But I believe there is a level of understanding that is just not possible unless you also go through that process. Hard to describe. Closest analog I can think of right now is my perspective on pregnancy vs my wife's.
You have to do the journey as a parent. It's long. It's beyond intense. It's a million small victories. A thousand small tragedies. If you come out the other end with mutual admiration and love, the depth is beyond explanation.
One thing that surprised me as a parent is that watching kids grow up provides significant introspective reflection which is nourishing in a different kind of way.
I humbly disagree a bit. Most items on that list do not have to cost a lot of money (besides a washing machine and a dishwasher) and some of them cannot be bought. It is also a mindset. I adore slow weekends.
I agree, for at least some listed, though many people blow past the amount of money actually needed. Money starts as a proxy measure for attaining these things, but it eventually replaces them as the goal, per Goodhart's law.
Would you mind sharing an example of "Working on something meaningful that pushes at the edge of my self actualization"? In my experience, work, even when meaningful, is quite separate from self actualization. I'm interested to hear how you're combining them.
I am approaching 40 and in two weeks I will begin clowning lessons with a Cirque du Soleil clown. I am thrilled.
So why clown as a discipline? Something deeply misunderstood and that probably lowers my social status with people who don’t understand it? Something with zero career utility? Because to me it represents extreme vulnerability.
I’m a pretty dignified person. A lot of poise. Goofy, but restrained. If I can debase myself in front of an audience in order to win a laugh then I believe I can do anything.
If I can (figuratively) hang my ass out for all to see then I can move with confidence. If I can blow past my natural inclination to save face, or have the answers. If I can discard the emotional hangups that make me feel embarrassed then I can be the person who I (and I suspect a great number of us) want to be deep down.
I want to (constructively) tear down everything inside of me that restrains me and discover who I can really be.
I took an acting class in college and found it remarkably challenging, but valuable, to tear down those emotional restraints. I should get back into it, it’s a skill that needs to be regularly practiced. I wish you luck and I hope it’s a valuable experience for you!
> In my experience, work, even when meaningful, is quite separate from self actualization.
I guess it depends on your temperament - I am very very high in industriousness and moderately high in curiosity, but the industriousness overrides the fragmentation of attention that normally comes with high curiosity individuals.
2 years ago my hobby project turned into a company, and now I run that, so for me I can find self actualisation through work, but I imagine if I was a different temperment, where work didn't overlap so much, it would be harder for that type of person.
A clean place to live with minimal clutter opens room for time to enjoy other things. Labor Day and Memorial day are milestones for assessing your hoarding. Or you could just rely on the season change as a reminder.
I know a few retired men who labored hard, neglected relationships and health, and conditioned themselves to the point where a quiet mind and a slow morning would take a lot of work. I don’t think retirement means that you get the things on the list for free. You have to work for a long time to get those things.
I would put love above health. Suppose you are perfectly healthy and even rich but have no friends to share anything with, life must be meaningless then.
The two are related, bad health makes it difficult to have meaningful relations and lack of meaningful relations fucks up your health. Smoking a pack of cigarettes a day is worse for life expectancy than loneliness.
You will find an audience on an online forum like here ;) Yes, this is my case. I'm sad, it's true, but at the same time I don't see where I did wrong. Yes, there were some blunders that I did — working too much here and there, not dating this girl who liked me in high school; but overall, everyone has to work and I think I would have been even less happy after not dating AND not working enough during those phases. I attribute 40% of my loneliness to lack of skills that I couldn't acquire early enough, and 60% to others, particularly class warfare (you don't have to be rich for people to attribute you the hate that people dedicate to the first-of-the-class, especially if you're working diligently). So I became the cliché that I would have hated to become: Rich, well-travelled, muscular, but single.
Bad luck. I can't regret much, since I've done as much as I could, as early as I could, to steer off it, and I still faced the same result. Would I have committed suicide at 16 if I had known the future? No, because I didn't know at the time how much my suffering was caused by actions of others. The right thing would have probably been to kill everyone in high school if I knew how people were speaking about me.
I'm sorry to read that. In fact I meant love in a more broad sense. There are many kinds of love, it does not need to be having a spouse. I work every weekday mainly for having good relations with people, money comes second.
But coming back to your story of life (ignoring the last sentence) : it's not too late to find love and also: try knowing and loving yourself, being content a bit more. When that succeeds, it is more easy to find love.
The first half of your message led me to write a well meaning reply to tell you you still have time to be happy and meet that girl from high school or someone else. The second part is so dark and evil that I regret wasting my time.
Health is a slope, but it makes things much easier. I've had health issues forever, but it's the kind that is fine until you suddenly start getting ill and the surgury and missing school/uni/work for 6 months which really screws things up.
I'd take that any day over getting rheumatoid arthritis, no matter how well managed it can be.
Usually yes. But people will also sacrifice their health for their loved ones, for example by working hard unhealthy jobs, or for a mission that's larger-than-themselves.
Time seems to be one of the most valuable luxuries. AFAIK it is not entirely clear why time seems to pass faster when one grows older. One argument is that the older brain does not form memories as intricate as in the younger brain.
Has anyone experimented with actively making more complex memories to make time pass slower? Seems like the best approach to living longer, at least in experience.
If you spend a year in prison then the time will pass incredibly slowly, but in retrospect (this is what prisoners usually say) the ordeal will seem quite short. Conversely, if you spend the year furiously partying or traveling or trying new adventure sports then the retrospective memory will be full to the brim, but the year itself will pass in an instant.
It all seems quite logical to me. There's no negotiating with the passage of time.
No direct answer, but I’ve personally noticed that having seasons makes a big difference here. After spending the past year on the East Coast with all of the different seasons, I certainly felt like time was going slower and looking back. It is pretty clear cut in my brain as to how much I did during that time.
That’s in contrast to where I normally live, which is southern California where you basically just go between Summer and Winter Lite which does seem to make the time pass quicker and lead to more routine living. I’ve often speculated with my friends around here about how there is a “Paradise Effect” of living here with both how people live their lives, as well as with how we perceive time.
I’m trying to fight it by journaling more and trying to remember more of the details that make each day special (good or bad). Even the small things. Whether that is something I did with my son, or something I did slightly different for a routine task.
I've found that traveling and discovering new things make time seem to pass slower because I have a lot of memories of those new places. On the other hand when I'm in a routine and keep doing the same thing everyday, it feels that time passes slower at the moment (because I'm bored) but looking back then time seems to have flown by
Exactly my experience and fits with my idea of how time is perceived in general. Ask a young child what they did this last week and they can likely rattle off a whole bunch of things that they've learned/experienced/discovered for the first time - a lot of 'memory milestones'. Ask your average adult and you'll often just get "same same" - no new 'memory milestones' because the week was pretty much just a repeat of a regular routine.
As for how it feels at the time. There's a lot of truth in the sayings "time flies when you're having fun" and "a watched pot never boils".
Maybe this is because I'm not a native speaker, but I'm having difficulty parsing this. What breaks? Do you mean time slows down during the retreat, or does the effect persist afterwards?
The way back always seems shorter that the way there. That's because you've already seen everything on the way there.
Neuroscience says novelty, plus attention, plus later retrieval are what slow down subjective perception of time.
So make sure you are having novel experiences, pay attention while you're having them, and recall them again later.
Even small things like going to a park you don't normally go to, and noticing the foliage and sounds can help. Big things like travel helps as well if you make sure you're taking it in, and it you recall the trip again later.
It’s because you do less memorable things, so there are less milestones to judge the time by. When you’re young, you don’t have to try so hard as many things are new and exciting. As you get older, you get a career, fall into autopilot mode, and maybe just take a vacation once in a while. Your options are to either figure out how to free yourself of this system so you can spend your time exactly how you want, or to rediscover the wonder and reward in small, seemingly everyday things.
Slow mornings and rest without guilt are very apt and specific but time and health are just general wishes.
I would add work with meaning and flow.
Also life with few... snags, all the issues that are small but extremely bothersome (knocking sound in a car, that one window that doesn't close fully, etc).
Right. What these luminaries mean is being driven to the airport and the flying business class (or on a pj) to your way to next totally frivolous destination.
The school year, across the US used to be labor day to Memorial Day. No longer the case. My step daughter’s former district started at the beginning of August, her freshman year of college last weekend.
At least here in the states, districts because they pay teachers shit, are getting pushback to add required meetings and learning on the end of the day. Instead there are “short days” for the kids.
It’s no longer an issue for me, but seriously annoying how little k-12 are actually in school these days.
Time, quiet mind, slow mornings, rest without guilt, calm and boring days - are all the same thing - escape from being busy. This assumes being busy is common, which is actually not that common for an age of 60+.
The real luxury, for any age, in general, is in not having dependencies and needs. The need to impress someone, the need to know every ugly news from around globe, the need to read everything and be knowledgeable, need to stay connected, need to be smart, the need to travel and see places, need to taste foods from around the world, need to have many friends, need to be loved by someone, and need to have more money and things.
Those are dependencies that make you weak. Lack of those means you won't be happy. Luxury is being happy without having any of those.
Beautifully put, and definitely resonated with me as someone who entered mostly-contentedly-frugal retirement a few years back.
One thing you didn't mention is the need to feel useful in some way; would you consider that a weakness too? Is it covered by "rest without guilt"? It's the bit I still have some trouble with.
Not OP, but there's a nuance. In general there's nothing wrong with wanting to be useful, but it is definitely possible to take it too far.
If you get sick and need care, you are typically not "useful". But that doesn't mean you instantly lose all value. I've had colleagues who would feel almost physically ill if they were somehow not able to respond to an incident somewhere, even if they weren't even on call at that point. Almost all of them burned out at some point and were no longer able to respond to anything, even if they'd wanted to. That's not healthy, and it weakens everyone in the long run.
Resting without guilt comes from the realization that you cannot keep the world running all by yourself. Let others pick up the work when you need a rest, so you can shelter them when they are down.
That is quite opposite of weakness. Your entire life is exercising power of your mind. What is left if you take it away? Do the thing you love and you will find your happiness.
I agree with some of what you listed here but a few I think are critical to being human. What's the point of not having needs?
Desires are what makes us human. I have kids and family and friends that love me and them in return but I don't believe that makes me weak. In fact it is the opposite, they give me the strength, confidence, and motivation to power through life.
I supoose not having any needs and desires would be an asset for a hitman.
It's also true that if you raise you expectations enough then you will never be able to hit them.
Keep in mind that it's not always a case of "shoot for the stars but hit the moon if you miss", sometimes it's "shoot for the stars and suffer crippling burnout for 20 years, after which it's too late to recover to anything meaningful".
Being realistic, for all it's boringness, does have advantages.
> The real luxury, for any age, in general, is in not having dependencies and needs.
Fewer. Everyone will always have some dependencies and needs.
Personally, I pity anyone who sees a desire to be loved as a weakness. That’s quite literally a lesson taught as a trope about being a good person vs an evil one.
Being loved is not a weakness. But a strong requirement to be loved is a weakness because that means you don't have strength to be happy without being loved.
Love is extremely common. It is not particularly much of a weakness because there are plenty of people who will love you. Now, finding that person, or those people, depending on exactly what it means, that could be hard. There are also a lot of people who will abuse your need for love, and so you do have to be careful.
This is actually a sad comment. How did you ever come to believe that wanting to feel loved, which is a fundamental desire (if not "need") for the vast majority of human beings, could ever be construed as a weakness resulting from a lack of "strength"?
But your steel-man actually proves my point: people who have insecure attachment commonly develop such an attachment style as a result of their childhood relationships with their caregivers.
It has absolutely nothing to do with being "strong" versus "weak".
Under your steel-man, someone who is anxious-avoidant could appear very independent and therefore "strong" even though they are not.
Charitably interpreted, GP is already loved and takes it for granted while arguing about a straw man. Or perhaps GP is specifically talking about someone who has trouble loving themself without a romantic partner.
How then about monks or priests? I wouldn't clasify them as all of them being sad or having a fundamental need to be loved. Also loved can have different meaning - mostly people think about family and partners. There is also community.
I have to regularly travel to rural villages in Asia and the people that live in these places have only the most basic human desires. They barely know what an LLM is let alone interact with them. They're some of the happiest people I've ever met.
Of course they'll complain about work or money, and they assume that a Western salary buys me freedom. But they get to live through these luxuries on a daily basis. I'd be lucky to enjoy just one of these in any given week.
I saw a video of a guy in his 50s living in a small city in Vietnam. He claimed $800/mo was more than enough, and $1000/mo would let him live lavishly. He just did the math and as soon as his predicted months of life left * 1000 < savings he pulled the trigger.
I think about that a lot because I have already hit that number easily, my family would definitely suffer though and not be into it.
There is a reason that South East Asia is popular for digital nomads and for retired expats. Thailand and Vietnam have still very affordable places if you avoid tourist traps. I would recommend first trying some easier destination like chiang mai or danang (if first time in asia), staying for 2 months (vacation/workation) and seeing if you still like it.
But is that true though? This seems bit of a romanticism. Having lived in rural villages in Asia, I can tell you people are about as happy as anywhere else. They worry about not being able to afford or have access to basic healthcare. They worry about one off season rain destroying their livelihoods for the season. Depending on where you are, some worry about a sudden onset of escalating violence. Plenty of people don’t even have access to drinking water. Some worry about their land and only source of income taken away by larger interests.
I agree with the gist what you're saying, like ditching the ego, the status chasing, etc. But dragging stuff like staying connected, being knowledgable, enjoying good food, and travel is where this goes a bit too far. A rock has zero dependencies, but nobody wants to be a rock.
> The real luxury, for any age, in general, is in not having dependencies and needs. The need to impress someone, the need to know every ugly news from around globe, the need to read everything and be knowledgeable, need to stay connected, need to be smart, the need to travel and see places, need to taste foods from around the world, need to have many friends, need to be loved by someone, and need to have more money and things.
This echoes with my (limited) understanding of Buddhism.
Haven't used public transport in a long time. I used it to commute in the past but stopped using it during COVID.
Can't say I miss it. Prefer to just leave when I want, go where I want and stay there as long as I want. All while not enjoying other peoples music and smell or waiting at a platform for ages.
As someone in my 30s I'm not sure I need the things on your list. Can't escape the aging of my parents but I'm lucky they will be able to financially support themselves through retirement. If I do add complications to my life I'll be careful to do my best ensuring it's a net benefit to my stability and peace.
yeah some people are very orthodox and think having a partner, kids, pets, mortgage is a must. The easiest exceptions is being a monk or priest and they are fine and society accept it.
Age has nothing to do with it. Those were your life style choices and they now impact you for the rest of your life. You could well have done the opposite and thrown all your earnings into the SP500, rented for cheap near your parents, traveled the world, and have no partner and/or multiple partners
I know a couple, retired, who are constantly traveling to Europe and Japan. When they’re not traveling, they spend all their time reading or visiting with their kids and grandkids.
I often want to tell them: You fools! You’ll never find happiness if all you do is give in to these weaknesses!
You can decide not to do any of these things. In fact, not wanting _anything_ is 100% within your control. It's literally what the stoics built the entirety of their philosophy on: aversion to pain and pleasure and redirection to moral choice
>Time, quiet mind, slow mornings, rest without guilt, calm and boring days - are all the same thing - escape from being busy. This assumes being busy is common, which is actually not that common for an age of 60+.
If there's anything 60+ are starting to not have enough of is time. As you get older time is running out. Not free time - time in general, as in life expectancy.
Regular free time can be elusive too if you're still forced to work, which can be the case until your mid to late 60s, a common pension age globally or if your savings have been wiped out.
"Slow mornings, rest without guilt, calm and boring days" too are not just "escape from being busy", but also being away from all kinds of bad situations: war, social turmoil, family drama, spouse dying, and others, that are not just about not being busy with work. Being 60+ might help with being busy (if you're retiring), but not with those.
>The real luxury, for any age, in general, is in not having dependencies and needs. The need to impress someone, the need to know every ugly news from around globe, the need to read everything and be knowledgeable, need to stay connected, need to be smart, the need to travel and see places, need to taste foods from around the world, need to have many friends, need to be loved by someone, and need to have more money and things.
That's sort of true, but too much of that can also mean one is just a jaded, burnt out person who doesn't care about anything and has no joy anymore.
Since the 2000s, in most highly developed countries, you are spoiled for choice if you live within 20km of a medium-/large-sized city. You don't need to travel more than a few km to enjoy cuisine from outside your region.
> need to be loved by someone
Jesus: Tell me you are a man without telling me you are a man. Few women I know would ever say something like that.
Happy is tall order, but there is a uniquely American sense of impending doom that is always hanging over your shoulder that doesn’t exist in most other countries.
because having money isn't the ultimate goal imho. it's what money enables - like a slow morning, a quiet mind, and good health. If money can't provide those or similar things, it loses its value more or less
Money can be a goal, but that's only because you're keeping score with it. If your life doesn't result around the top score in something, money will never be anything but an enabler. Of course, if you're a rich person and trying to keep score, you can also keep your score where's something other than money. If you like art, then having a Van Gogh original is going to be worth more than a money, and so the specific unique art you have can be how you keep score.
Don't read the above as if all rich people are trying to keep score in some way. A large majority of them are just trying to live their life. Even when it appears they're keeping score you typically discover they like the art and that's why they have it. they couldn't care less if you have more or less than them. They might be jealous if you own the particular original that they're looking for but they're not keeping score against you with it.
Which is good for me and probably the vast majority of those reading this because we have the ability to earn decent amount of money as an engineer and with some investment we can have a nice life and retirement but we will never be anywhere near the top of any attempt to keep score.
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[ 0.19 ms ] story [ 10.9 ms ] threadIt is a luxury to not have to worry about having enough of it.
The super rich aren't making more money because they think more money will buy them correspondingly more happiness. It's a game to them played at massive real-world scales.
Any ideas beyond real estate?
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/contra-pritchard-on-liberal...
It's incredible.
We like vinyl just because it has the physicality to it but I think anything here is fine. It's the music and the shared experience.
But to just play your favorite songs to your family? You surely have woken up to a song you remembered or have been listening and played it out loud?
If you haven't, do it! Your family will love to see you sing, dance, react to it!
Its interesting that people value their relationship with their children so much and I assume its due to a deep sense of connection with them, they being "flesh and blood" but I've never given that any weight. I feel much more connected to people who have had similar life experiences and ideas to myself, and that could be anyone. I have quite a few relatives who I've never met or met once and do not see because they are nothing like me.
I suspect this is mostly due to being pretty far out on the pointy bits of various bell curves.
I had a a good relationship with mine growing up, and enjoyed visiting, talking and so on as I was an adult.
A good friend had it different. They were not good parents. He, much like you, visit out of obligation and not to get written out of the will quite frankly. If it was up to him he'd never see them again.
Being able to feel that love directly is, of course, a different story that's probably indeed pretty unique.
this is the most cringe, pick me, "look how I'm not like the other girls" thing I've ever read on this forum
What matters to me:
Sleeping in as much as I need
Working on something meaningful that pushes at the edge of my self actualization
Not ever having to worry about bills
The love from my partner
Having the ability to help others selflessly
The wisdom I have gained over the last 20 years of life
The incredible people around me
I am approaching 40 and in two weeks I will begin clowning lessons with a Cirque du Soleil clown. I am thrilled.
So why clown as a discipline? Something deeply misunderstood and that probably lowers my social status with people who don’t understand it? Something with zero career utility? Because to me it represents extreme vulnerability.
I’m a pretty dignified person. A lot of poise. Goofy, but restrained. If I can debase myself in front of an audience in order to win a laugh then I believe I can do anything.
If I can (figuratively) hang my ass out for all to see then I can move with confidence. If I can blow past my natural inclination to save face, or have the answers. If I can discard the emotional hangups that make me feel embarrassed then I can be the person who I (and I suspect a great number of us) want to be deep down.
I want to (constructively) tear down everything inside of me that restrains me and discover who I can really be.
I guess it depends on your temperament - I am very very high in industriousness and moderately high in curiosity, but the industriousness overrides the fragmentation of attention that normally comes with high curiosity individuals.
2 years ago my hobby project turned into a company, and now I run that, so for me I can find self actualisation through work, but I imagine if I was a different temperment, where work didn't overlap so much, it would be harder for that type of person.
While they sound incredible to me, I can't help but ponder that the demographic with the highest suicide rate is recently retired men.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10227535/
Bad luck. I can't regret much, since I've done as much as I could, as early as I could, to steer off it, and I still faced the same result. Would I have committed suicide at 16 if I had known the future? No, because I didn't know at the time how much my suffering was caused by actions of others. The right thing would have probably been to kill everyone in high school if I knew how people were speaking about me.
But coming back to your story of life (ignoring the last sentence) : it's not too late to find love and also: try knowing and loving yourself, being content a bit more. When that succeeds, it is more easy to find love.
Why it's bad: I haven't performed my deed, precisely because it's so evil, but you have.
I'd take that any day over getting rheumatoid arthritis, no matter how well managed it can be.
Has anyone experimented with actively making more complex memories to make time pass slower? Seems like the best approach to living longer, at least in experience.
It all seems quite logical to me. There's no negotiating with the passage of time.
I remember feeling like the days passed painfully slowly, but the years flew by.
That’s in contrast to where I normally live, which is southern California where you basically just go between Summer and Winter Lite which does seem to make the time pass quicker and lead to more routine living. I’ve often speculated with my friends around here about how there is a “Paradise Effect” of living here with both how people live their lives, as well as with how we perceive time.
As for how it feels at the time. There's a lot of truth in the sayings "time flies when you're having fun" and "a watched pot never boils".
It's a paradox.
Time will hit the breaks, hard.
With effort, the effect can persist. But you have to be willing to make changes.
I suspect most of the people here (including myself) are so addicted to tech and instant access to information it would be unbearable for most.
Experience: Meditated every morning for an hour for sometime, it was tough in the beginning.
Neuroscience says novelty, plus attention, plus later retrieval are what slow down subjective perception of time.
So make sure you are having novel experiences, pay attention while you're having them, and recall them again later.
Even small things like going to a park you don't normally go to, and noticing the foliage and sounds can help. Big things like travel helps as well if you make sure you're taking it in, and it you recall the trip again later.
I would add work with meaning and flow.
Also life with few... snags, all the issues that are small but extremely bothersome (knocking sound in a car, that one window that doesn't close fully, etc).
I choose: ability not to travel (commute).
At least here in the states, districts because they pay teachers shit, are getting pushback to add required meetings and learning on the end of the day. Instead there are “short days” for the kids.
It’s no longer an issue for me, but seriously annoying how little k-12 are actually in school these days.
The real luxury, for any age, in general, is in not having dependencies and needs. The need to impress someone, the need to know every ugly news from around globe, the need to read everything and be knowledgeable, need to stay connected, need to be smart, the need to travel and see places, need to taste foods from around the world, need to have many friends, need to be loved by someone, and need to have more money and things.
Those are dependencies that make you weak. Lack of those means you won't be happy. Luxury is being happy without having any of those.
One thing you didn't mention is the need to feel useful in some way; would you consider that a weakness too? Is it covered by "rest without guilt"? It's the bit I still have some trouble with.
Don't be evil tho
If you get sick and need care, you are typically not "useful". But that doesn't mean you instantly lose all value. I've had colleagues who would feel almost physically ill if they were somehow not able to respond to an incident somewhere, even if they weren't even on call at that point. Almost all of them burned out at some point and were no longer able to respond to anything, even if they'd wanted to. That's not healthy, and it weakens everyone in the long run.
Resting without guilt comes from the realization that you cannot keep the world running all by yourself. Let others pick up the work when you need a rest, so you can shelter them when they are down.
Desires are what makes us human. I have kids and family and friends that love me and them in return but I don't believe that makes me weak. In fact it is the opposite, they give me the strength, confidence, and motivation to power through life.
I supoose not having any needs and desires would be an asset for a hitman.
Keep in mind that it's not always a case of "shoot for the stars but hit the moon if you miss", sometimes it's "shoot for the stars and suffer crippling burnout for 20 years, after which it's too late to recover to anything meaningful".
Being realistic, for all it's boringness, does have advantages.
Fewer. Everyone will always have some dependencies and needs.
Personally, I pity anyone who sees a desire to be loved as a weakness. That’s quite literally a lesson taught as a trope about being a good person vs an evil one.
It has absolutely nothing to do with being "strong" versus "weak".
Under your steel-man, someone who is anxious-avoidant could appear very independent and therefore "strong" even though they are not.
And an island never cries.
Of course they'll complain about work or money, and they assume that a Western salary buys me freedom. But they get to live through these luxuries on a daily basis. I'd be lucky to enjoy just one of these in any given week.
I think about that a lot because I have already hit that number easily, my family would definitely suffer though and not be into it.
Working on desire is a big thing.
Having dependencies or needs is one thing, having them managed for relative minimal impact on one's time might be another way to look at it for some.
This echoes with my (limited) understanding of Buddhism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Noble_Truths#The_Four_Tru...
Can't say I miss it. Prefer to just leave when I want, go where I want and stay there as long as I want. All while not enjoying other peoples music and smell or waiting at a platform for ages.
Once you get a partner, kids, elderly parents, pets, mortgage, etc. you won't be worrying about your needs anymore trust me.
I know a couple, retired, who are constantly traveling to Europe and Japan. When they’re not traveling, they spend all their time reading or visiting with their kids and grandkids.
I often want to tell them: You fools! You’ll never find happiness if all you do is give in to these weaknesses!
If there's anything 60+ are starting to not have enough of is time. As you get older time is running out. Not free time - time in general, as in life expectancy.
Regular free time can be elusive too if you're still forced to work, which can be the case until your mid to late 60s, a common pension age globally or if your savings have been wiped out.
"Slow mornings, rest without guilt, calm and boring days" too are not just "escape from being busy", but also being away from all kinds of bad situations: war, social turmoil, family drama, spouse dying, and others, that are not just about not being busy with work. Being 60+ might help with being busy (if you're retiring), but not with those.
>The real luxury, for any age, in general, is in not having dependencies and needs. The need to impress someone, the need to know every ugly news from around globe, the need to read everything and be knowledgeable, need to stay connected, need to be smart, the need to travel and see places, need to taste foods from around the world, need to have many friends, need to be loved by someone, and need to have more money and things.
That's sort of true, but too much of that can also mean one is just a jaded, burnt out person who doesn't care about anything and has no joy anymore.
Are they noticeable happier?
Would be nice to hear from someone who lived both sides of the pond for a long while.
Don't read the above as if all rich people are trying to keep score in some way. A large majority of them are just trying to live their life. Even when it appears they're keeping score you typically discover they like the art and that's why they have it. they couldn't care less if you have more or less than them. They might be jealous if you own the particular original that they're looking for but they're not keeping score against you with it.
Which is good for me and probably the vast majority of those reading this because we have the ability to earn decent amount of money as an engineer and with some investment we can have a nice life and retirement but we will never be anywhere near the top of any attempt to keep score.