View Full Version : The medium chill
Blog post & TEDx vid about happiness and life.
http://www.grist.org/living/2011-06-28-the-medium-chill
Thanks for this Redfox. Very interesting insight. Funny story to share with you. I was sitting here (about a half an hour ago) and contemplating another cup of coffee. After looking at the clock I said, "no, I think that's it for the day", then I happened across your entry and back into the kitchen I went to pour myself another!
The house is quiet today, everyone is out doing their own thing and DH is out of town, so I have nothing to loose! :)
Cool. Love Daniel Gilbert. Just read a research article the other day about how expressing more gratitude helps reduce materialism. I love reading stuff that shows there is an actual scientific connection behind my various areas of interest: behavioral economics, voluntary simplicity, positive psychology.
ApatheticNoMore
7-9-11, 2:25pm
Yea, I think it's not really so easy to achieve though, at least not in an expensive urban area. If you just go for something in the middle it's a very difficult balancing act to achieve. First off there is not much middle. There's near minimum wage and then there's high paid high stress.
Now what I think he is talking about is taking one of the higher paid jobs and yet not buying into the 60 hour a week culture. I get it. That is also my path generally (not that I don't consider other paths, heck if I'm going to be unemployed, I'm going to consider my paths haha, but that's what I'll probably end up doing). But even that is hard as well ... we literally had meetings at work in which we were told that anyone who views their job as something where they merely come in and do their work for 8 hours will not be with the company anymore. I seldom find a job in my field that doesn't say "faced paced environment". What happened to the 40 hour week, or right it went out by making every white collar professional worker "salaried".
So yea the difficult balancing act may be the best choice. But if the middle WILL NOT HOLD then what, you become a rich workaholic as detailed in the article, yea there's that. Or you become poor. But people have both been taught to fear poverty and rationally fear it. Because poverty in a country as brutally polarized and ruthless in America isn't pretty. Having no health insurance is not pretty! Sending your kids to public schools *may* not be pretty (this really depends on where you live, many places have decent public schools, but around here not so much so). The author seems to think it's purely about snobbery, but many public schools in America are genuinely terrible. Living in a dangerous neighborhood is not pretty (oh around here they have sidewalks, just the roads are full of potholes, no government money is ever spent to fix poor people's roads). Living on a diet of processed foods is not pretty (not in terms of what it does to mental and physical health!). But the truly poor in America DO live on a diet of processed foods. Low wage jobs often treat their workers poorly (yea so do some high paid jobs sure), but it's the whole dynamic of this society, if a person is working at Wal-Mart they are the lowest of the low and can be treated poorly. The poor are even poisoned in this society, sounds extreme, but where do you think dirty manufacturing will be located, where do you think a toxic waste dump will be put, in some posh rich neighborhood or even in some tree lined suburb, um I think not. So yea, I look at my attachment to having a good income etc. etc.. (don't even know if I'll get it you know), but I don't know, I still can't get around the fact that urban poverty seems to kind of suck to me. Guess, I'm just so bourgeoisie. I'll look at it, I now very well how I've been scripted, to be middle class professional. Sometimes the article seems to me just a way for those who have achieved some happy medium (complete with health insurance?! and after how many advanced degrees?) to pat themselves on the back.
Sometimes the article seems to me just a way for those who have achieved some happy medium (complete with health insurance?! and after how many advanced degrees?) to pat themselves on the back.
I agree it's not an article for everyone. But some people on the treadmill might slow down for a minute, figure out what their own priorities (as in their own and not defined for them) are, and just go for "good enough" and what really makes them happy.
good article. I may be just lucky or something, but I've found a place where we are living very simply and happily on about half of our income, and the rest is for retirement, savings, helping our kids through college, travel, that sort of thing. I work as a nurse manager. I work hard and yes its stressful. but when i go home i'm done, and I fully enjoy my downtime. I like my work, I like my time off, and I'm hopeful that people can find this balance in more careers than just nursing.
a lot of it has to do with our attitude, and also with our ability to think outside the box.
also -- I have am MBA. so much of what is said is meetings is just strings of proper words and phrases to include the company mission and vision with the details of what is being discussed .... we do better if we just don't think too hard about it and do a good job with the work we are given. and let the rest go. I know for myself, I often think too much about all this stuff, and need to just let it go. in other words, apply to medium chill thinking to my work as well as to my private life.
I agree it's not an article for everyone. But some people on the treadmill might slow down for a minute, figure out what their own priorities (as in their own and not defined for them) are, and just go for "good enough" and what really makes them happy.
70% cut in household income, most days we think it was worth it. It has been an adjustment on every front, though. (not that I'm complaining)
no advanced degrees, but we do have health insurance! (individual, employer doesn't offer it)
Two modest salaries here, or sometimes only one and a half. No degrees. Always lived in nice suburbs. Kids had everything they needed, and in my opinion, a healthy portion of what they wanted.
We were lucky, however, to always be insured through the workplace.
We're retired now and traveling all over.
Attitude and priorities define your life.
Living below your means is key. But everybody, especially young people with children (I'm thinking of my own adult sons), wants bigger and better. Then they have to work harder to support that lifestyle. I think it is something that a lot of people don't really "get" until they are older, which is a shame. Spending and keeping up with the Joneses is such a waste. But here in SoCal, you really have to get your mind around the idea of "less is more" because "more" is all around you, the "dangling carrot." I have been into the VS movement since 1998, and I still struggle with not wanting "more" sometimes. That is why I love these forums because they ground me. :)
My biggest personal issue is finding an employer who would be ok with medium chill. I work in software development, and for the most part, its tight deadlines and unrealistic expectations. But sometimes that is also where the fun is, in achieving something as a team that you didn't think was possible. There are large, boring employers that do the same old same old (and I've worked at one of them) and while the overtime requirements were minimal, if any, the 40 hour job was just so tiring because it required no thought to go through the same motions day after day.
There seems to be either extreme, and very little in the middle. I routinely expect to work 5-10 hours a week of free overtime, and maybe check my email once per day on the weekends. If there is an emergency or crisis, I don't mind doing extra on top of that. But that isn't enough these days. I know people writing responses to emails at midnight, for something that could obviously wait until morning, because they feel its expected. I know people taking phone calls during dinner, and bringing their laptops on vacation, or texting during kids sports games because of fear of what will happen to them if they don't.
Employers, particularly in this market, have come to expect knowledge workers to be available at their whim. Any idea or whim must be acted upon at whatever hour the whim occurs, and it doesn't matter what the employee happened to be doing. I know if I draw the line, I won't get the job, or I won't have the job for long. There will be dozens of other candidates/employees waiting to take my place.
Groovy article, RF. I believe you can have any kind of life you want, as long as you're willing to let go of the attitude that there's only the poor and the wealthy and you have to choose one life or the other here. If you're utterly convinced that because of "this economy" (i.e. the one you see on the news) you have no real choices, then this article is going to look absurd and self-congratulatory.
There are a hundred microeconomies in every place you could possibly live in North America, a thousand ways to make money, a million ways to live your life, but the price of admission is you've got to choose to live in the micro, not the macro. That often requires turning off the gd TV & radio, ceasing to listen to the news tell you "how bad it is out there," plan what you want your life to be like, and get creative to build it. For most people, that's just too much work. I see people scrambling to denigrate my husband and I for our simple lifestyle, trying to find some reason why we're just "lucky" to be able to make ends meet, pay our health insurance, and live a good life.
We had to move to a smaller community, for example, where the cost of living was lower. I cut my working hours in half to be able to grow a lot of our food. For the most part, we get by on one car. No iPhone, no iPad, no Kindle, no GPS, no Netflix, no TiVo, no K-cup of coffee in the morning. For a while, I fell asleep every night with the YMOYL list of "100 things you can do to save money" open on my chest - I lived by it.
I agree with bagelgirl that attitudes and priorities define your life. And not a day goes by that I don't bless the day I found SL, which has been a life saver, and enabler of our "medium chill."
Needless to say, I think he's spot on {shrug}
Living below your means is key. But everybody, especially young people with children (I'm thinking of my own adult sons), wants bigger and better. Then they have to work harder to support that lifestyle. I think it is something that a lot of people don't really "get" until they are older, which is a shame. Spending and keeping up with the Joneses is such a waste. But here in SoCal, you really have to get your mind around the idea of "less is more" because "more" is all around you, the "dangling carrot." I have been into the VS movement since 1998, and I still struggle with not wanting "more" sometimes. That is why I love these forums because they ground me. :)
Too true. I am in Santa Barbara. On one hand, lots of people cannot afford homes and most that can - can only afford small ones. OTOH, people are trying to stretch it into bigger places, plus they like their SUVs and toys and stuff.
ApatheticNoMore
7-10-11, 10:12pm
herbgeek, yea you speak my reality :)
let go of the attitude that there's only the poor and the wealthy and you have to choose one life or the other here.
It's mostly based on the people I've spoken too. I haven't seen a happy medium, I haven't found a model (not locally I mean). It wasn't just based on talking to high paid people, but also those who have often not known where their next meal is coming from at times (yea but again, I don't really want that). So no I don't unequivocally say black swans don't exist, but darned if I know exactly what to do to find one.
In fact such conversations led me to the thought that giving up a lot of bourgeoisie expectations may be precisely what is needed to live cheaply and freely (ie giving up the nice neighborhood, the tree lined suburb, and living somewhere more ghetto etc..). But then again I come to the reality that it is not necessarily a price I'm willing to pay (I like renting one bedrooms and studios in tree lined suburbs maybe, as evil as that may be :devil: ).
So it led me to a lot of thinking about how deeply bourgeoisie expectations get buried in people's minds and how perverse they really are. But I don't know seems most people believe you can have your cake and eat it too somehow.
I'm not exactly sure how one would get mid range jobs or what we're even talking about. It seems to me you are either trained for a career and you work it (if your lucky yea, lots of very well trained people unemployed these days). Or you do low skilled low paid jobs right? I don't have impressive education or anything. But I think I'll get work eventually (don't think it's too outlandish to hope for that sometime). And I'm probably prepared to sell my soul to the high stress job to get it needless to say.
Great article Redfox! Thanks for posting this.
Polliwog and mm1970, that was my experience of SoCal too. I lived there for several years and eventually that aspect of the culture led me to move home to Minnesota. I would imagine that there are other areas of the country that are like that too.
I think I probably live in the epicenter of the medium chill. Most of the people I know live in reasonably priced, reasonably sized houses and have jobs that pay decently, but solidly middle class. They drive sensible cars and wear sensibly priced clothing. I seem to know an inordinate number of people who work part-time, work from home, are SAHPs or are retired (sometimes early) and find plenty of time in their days for nice long walks in the park or gatherings with friends.
There's no judgement here for things like secondhand clothes. You here conversations like, "I love that purse, where did you get it?" "Isn't it cute? I got it for $1 at a garage sale." "Oh I love garage saling! Good score!"
People get together to play frisbee golf at a park or knit together or just hang out and watch movies on netflix, which most people I know have instead of cable.
Its a nice life.
Stella, that's what I was talking about -- I didn't used to have these kinds of lifestyles on my radar (thought everyone I saw in town during the day was independently wealthy or retired or something...) but now I seem to know a lot of people who have just turned the dial down to where they can live on less, have more time and less stress, and really try to maximize the joy in their lives. Like the people in the article, some have had to make the tough choice to turn away from high-pressure, golden-handcuffs kinds of jobs in order to live better. But there's a whole subculture now that's emerging of people who perhaps patch together more than one part-time job, do a bit of barter, get good at frugal living, choose to move to a more affordable area/home/etc. so they can have the life they want.
It's actually turned out to be easier for me, in these economic times, to cobble together this kind of life, because you're able to take advantage of employment opportunities that others often overlook or simply can't survive on. A couple of part-time jobs can go a long way when your living expenses are low.
A paid-off car, a cheap house always in some state of improvement, a big garden, friends who trade eggs & milk, willingness to live simply....and we don't have many problems even living here in the Colorado foothills, where things can be pretty pricey.
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