We are all part of the great human family. It’s why we work so hard to raise our standard of living.
And what matters is our satisfaction with life. Here’s the survey to help you identify yours. I encourage you to take it.
Pick the number that best represents your Life Satisfaction.
*** Low 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 High ***
While you’re at it, make a prediction of what you think the world average might be. Write it down. I’ll share the answer below.
The above survey comes from The International Society of Quality of Life Studies. It has compiled a world average rating of our life satisfaction based on over 1 million responses from people in 45 countries.
Now, I’d be concerned that the folks in Botswana and China will surely put downward pressure on the average compared to folks in Belgium and Canada.
What you don’t suspect, however, is how close they come when rating their life satisfaction.
It’s a curious thing. Regardless of economic or social conditions people in many of the underdeveloped countries are just as happy (some happier!) than we are in the west where our standard of living is dramatically higher.
Perhaps we’re all working too hard here as the ‘standard of longing’ demands more and more money and more and more of our time.
When the world average is seven among “the haves and have nots”, I think “the haves” need more face time and more fun time with those they love.
Remember. You’re not here for a long time. You’re here for a good time.
Copyright 2010 William M. MacKay
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( 3 / 86 )I’ve had a change of heart today. It’s a relationship thing.
Nothing that would make the National Enquirer but it should.
Because it’s loss could be brutal. Your job.
Reading Don Peck’s article in the March issue of The Atlantic, “HOW A NEW JOBLESS ERA WILL TRANSFORM AMERICA”, left me feeling deflated, ‘empty as a pocket’ in Paul Simon’s words.
In the first instance, it triggered my fight response. What to do (and do it now) to protect my friends and my children from the potential downward financial, emotional, and social spiral that joblessness could create if Peck’s and others’ predictions are even close to accurate.
Signs of Trouble That Peck Reports
* average duration of unemployment now extends beyond 6 months (first since 1948);
* in the past year a job loss, a reduction in hours, or a pay cut hit 44% of families;
* number of delinquent mortgages in November at 1 in 7, up from 1 in 10 a year earlier;
* no other circumstance produces a larger decline in mental health and well-being than being involuntarily out of work for 6 months or more;
* we are 11 years into a period of decline, much deeper than the latest recession.
Sobering thoughts for Americans to be sure, all of which led me to change my stance on the amount of emergency funds you should have available. This relationship between consumption and saving is a precarious balance and should reflect changing circumstances, both yours and that of the economy.
Given that so many of us use multiple credit cards with ridiculously generous limits, I had relaxed the traditional rule of thumb about keeping 6 months of income available in highly liquid assets. In the past I felt comfortable that 3 months would be adequate. Not any more thanks to The Atlantic article.
The challenge, however, when budgets are tight is to squeeze that much out of monthly expenses. This represents a significant amount of cash that few can manage to hold back from consumption when every dime is allocated for something.
Reading this article will help you find the motivation to try if not the immediate cash.
Copyright 2010 William M. MacKay
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( 3 / 113 )Can you believe that 11.3 million Americans are underwater on their mortgage?
Seems staggering, doesn’t it? But that’s not all.
“More than 10% of people with mortgages owe 25% more than their home is worth” reports MarketWatch, The Wall Street Digest enews.
With this volume of negative equity floating in the market there is not much to celebrate. In fact, if this is the best the recovery is able to produce, I get a real choking feeling about the future of home values.
If you have been trying to sell your home or hope to sell it this year the danger signs are all around of further declines.
Another 2.5 million homeowners have less than 5% equity in their home. This is the state of affairs as 4th quarter US home prices dropped 1.1% versus the 3rd quarter.
Keeping your head above water is the challenge of the day. Spending less appears to be the only solution in an economy where employment is also at risk. No lifejacket here.
This bundle of bad news is a nasty disturbance ‘blowin’ in the wind’ as the song goes. It’s interesting that the original tune was a spiritual sung by emancipated Canadian Negroes that celebrated the end of slavery in the British Empire.
While it was called “No More Auction Block” back then, the same can’t be said for the housing market as it remains chained to a principle (sub prime mortgage) that should have never been allowed in the first place.
Copyright 2010 William M. MacKay
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( 3 / 89 )Wanting more than you can get…
is the Super Bowl of the middle class.
It’s a recipe for financial misery in the first instance
because it’s a poverty of the material kind.
When the “material girl” and boy want all that life has to offer
we are back to where Adam and Eve started it all.
If perfection arrives only when there is nothing left to add
you will never find the happiness expected for one simple reason;
there is always more to acquire. That’s the goal of a consumption-based system.
You can never have it all because it isn’t available yet.
But you can be sure of three things:
1. It will be for sale soon
2. You will be told you must have it, and
3. Some of your friends will get it.
Given the declining financial punch of the middle class, your natural inclination to peer pressure, and an attitude of entitlement chasing it all requires increasing use of credit and debt. That’s the price to pay.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery, remarking about engineering elegance, regarded perfection just the opposite from the above. He saw it when there was nothing left to take away.
The plight of Haitians is an extreme case of nothing left to lose. Deprivation-driven frugality was never meant to be so cruel and brutal. But is there a middle ground?
Examining your spending and eliminating what you want least frees up money for what you really want most. Is there some sacrifice and discipline demanded? You bet.
But the outcome is the future possibility of getting something you would rate close to perfection.
A relentless pursuit of what truly matters most will work if you adopt the rule that you can have ‘any thing’ you want but not ‘every thing’. This action starves the stuff that matters least when you stop using credit to buy them.
When there is nothing left of the stuff you want least you are truly being frugal.
Call it by any name, an attitude of thrift is a proven way to get what you want most with what you have.
When wanting more costs more than you have, happiness is not middle class.
Copyright 2010 William M. MacKay
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( 2.9 / 89 )As another conspiracy theory, the plot to render you poor is timely.
First, the question offers an opportunity to strike out at the perpetrators of the financial mess many people are struggling to resolve.
Secondly, it attempts to shift responsibility from the individual in crisis to a third party, one you can blame for your misfortune.
If only it was that easy to walk away from all the financial decisions you have made that have been debt-trimental to your investments, lifestyle, and dreams.
But while you can’t change the past you can do something so your current financial troubles never happens again.
Today, articles abound with prescriptions for being frugal, pinching pennies, all the usual approaches to doing what you should have done five years ago.
They go by various names; Right-Sizing, Living Well, Thankful Simplicity.
Pick one. The choice won’t matter much as long as you begin. “Live well with what you have” was a recent headline in Parade Magazine. More advice. There’s lots of it everywhere.
You and you alone still have to control your spending and the impulses that drive it.
Without a crystal clear awareness of the difference between what truly matters most to you and what matters least you don’t have a chance.
There are a multitude of products and services promoted as your salvation for all that makes you miserable, lonely, unhappy, and unfulfilled. Believe this at your peril because purchasing all of them will render you poor.
There is no plot to ruin you. You do that yourself.
Copyright 2010 William M. MacKay
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