The Myth of "Easy"

We've all probably heard our friends, colleagues and family members say things that are similar to the following:

"It's easier to skip the gym and not exercise."

"It's easier to spend and not to save money."

"It's too difficult to stay disciplined when it comes to eating healthy."

"It's easier to goof off instead of going to school and to learning a skill."

"It's difficult to get up and go to work. I'd rather sleep in and call in sick."

"It's easier to use an app to get McDonald's delivered to my door than to go grocery shopping and cooking myself a healthy meal."

"It's easier to plop on the couch next to my significant other and watch Netflix instead of taking the time to sit down and have a conversation."

In the short term, sure the examples above may seem like the "easier" options. I would make the argument that if you look at the long term, going for the "difficult" options are actually what will make your life easier in the future.

Here are a few examples:

What's easier? Regularly exercising to strengthen your body or being so weak in your old age that you're living in constant fear of falling down and not being able to get up?

What's easier? Eating a serving of vegetables at each meal, or having to go a doctor because you're so constipated that you've only pooped once in the last 3 days?

What's easier? Getting up and going to school and/or work every day or being homeless at 60 years old?

What's easier? Delaying that major purchase to put money away for your retirement or being in your 70s and not having enough money to buy both food AND medication?

What's easier?  Making the effort to have small, meaningful, daily conversations with your significant other or going through divorce proceedings?

What's easier?  Going to school and getting an education or being unable to pay your bills because you can't get a job due to your lack of credentials and training?

Sure, some of these examples are maybe a bit extreme or "strawman-ish" but you get the idea. A lot of what we're doing (or not doing) in the short term might feel like the "easier" thing to do, but if you take a long term look, what we're actually doing is choosing to make our life harder in the long term.  So the next time you hear your inner voice telling you to take the easy path, just ask yourself, if it really is easier in the long run.

Your New Year's Resolutions Suck and You'll Never Keep Them

It's January 1st again. So we're going to hear our friends and loved-ones make resolutions. We're going to see the social media "motivational" posts talking about their resolutions.  We've heard it all before (or read it on our friends' social media):

This year, I resolve to:

• lose weight
• be more positive
• make 'self-care' a priority
• save more money
• make more money
• cut out 'toxic' people
• eat more healthy
• drink less alcohol
• drink more water
• exercise more
• be more fit

There's nothing wrong with setting goals.  I admire and respect people who take the steps required to better themselves and their lives. The problem with resolutions is that most are not SMART.

They're not specific and extremely vague.  Success and progress are difficult to measure because most people don't give themselves the proper steps to take to get their goals.  Most resolutions makers can be so overly enthusiastic and motivated that the goals they set for themselves aren't achievable and realistic. Even if you measure your progress, you realize that you can't reach your lofty goal and you end up getting discouraged.

Of course, most people making resolutions don't give themselves a proper time frame to achieve and succeed. Meaning that because they don't give themselves deadlines, they end up simply meandering instead of achieving what they set out to do.

Aside from the quality of the resolutions, if you really thought that whatever you're resolving to do was important, you wouldn't be waiting for an arbitrary day of the year to start doing it.  You'd be working on that goal right now.  You would have made it a priority already and adjusted your habits accordingly.  You already would have been looking for ways to stay focused and disciplined to achieve your goals. You wouldn't be relying on "motivational" pictures and videos while going on social media to tell everyone that "New year, new me" will so totally happen in 2020.

Money Can Buy Happiness

Many of us who didn't grow up with a lot of money were always told that money won't buy happiness. I think in most cases it's said by our parents to try to shut us up when we were whining about not being able to afford the latest and greatest toys being shown on TV commercials.

Yes, it is true that having money to buy material luxuries won't necessarily make you happier. However, there are many things that you can buy with money that will contribute to your happiness.

Here are a few examples of how to use money to buy / increase your happiness.

The Basics
It's very difficult to admit how happy you are in life if you don't have the basic needs covered.  If you're unable to buy food, to afford a safe place to live, to pay for clothing, health care, electricity and heating for yourself and your family, I doubt very much that you'll consider yourself to be happy.  Money allows you to pay for those basic needs.

Not convinced?  In the next few weeks, when the bleakest part of winter comes and it's minus 20 degrees outside, there's over 30 cm of snow on the ground and the polar winds are making your face turn red, go find a homeless person sitting on the sidewalk in the cold.  Ask him or her if having some money so they can have a place to stay would make them happier.

Or simply take a look at any person who doesn't make enough money to pay for rent, groceries, electricity and other necessities.  They're up to their ears in debt to make ends meet.  We all know someone like this.  See how stressed out that person. Now think: how much happier they would be if they had just a little more money to get out of debt and pay all their bills on time.

Time

In a previous post, I wrote about not being able to earn more of time spent the same way you can do with money. However, if you have enough money, you can buy yourself more time to do the things that make you happy.

For example, with enough money, instead of spending hours doing laundry, cooking, cleaning my home and washing dishes, I could hire someone to do those chores. The time I saved can then be spent on fun activities with my wife, my friends and my family, thus making me happier.

Another example of this is bribing your way to the front of the line. Yes, it's a bit of a dick move and no, it's not fair to those who came in advance and waited. But hey, there's a certain feeling of satisfaction knowing that you've saved yourself some time and got what you needed faster by subtly slipping someone a folded up bill.

The ability to say "No" with little to no repercussions
This is also known as having "fuck you" money. The more money you have, the more you're able to refuse requests, orders and drudgery that, while lucrative, can be a detriment to your happiness.  Having "fuck you" money makes it easier for you to avoid lousy jobs with terrible hours, long commutes, and stressful environments.

It means you won't have to deal with bullying bosses or rude clients.  Having "fuck you" money means that you can afford to say no while using the corresponding expletives without the risk of putting yourself and your family in financial trouble.  All this while pursuing work that actually increases your overall happiness.

Acts of altruism
This is actually one of my favourite examples because of the "double-whammy" effect.  Recent economics and psychology studies show that people who donate money to charity and seeing the positive results of their donation end up feeling happier and feeling better about themselves.  So, not only are you helping people in need (thus allowing them to purchase "the basics" and increase their happiness), you're also making yourself happier in the process.

It doesn't even have to be charity.  Many of us have parents who have always wanted to take a dream vacation that they were never able to afford because they were trying to pay bills while raising us.  I'm sure that a lot of us, if we could afford it, would be more than happy to pay for that dream vacation of theirs.  In this case, not only would we make ourselves happier, people we love would be happier as well.

If that's not buying happiness with money, I don't know what is.

Final thoughts
If you've noticed, none of my examples of money buying happiness include buying mansions, fast cars, jewelry, the latest and greatest giant flat screen TV, the newest iPhone, etc.  Those are the things people first think of when they say "money doesn't buy happiness".  They're right.  Trying to buy and accumulate material possessions as a way to fill whatever emotional void you have is never going to work. You'll just end up being a hoarder with so much clutter in your home that you can barely move around in it.

Money CAN HELP make you happier by allowing you to gain experiences that others with less money won't get.  Having money gives you the option to say no to lucrative, but time-consuming and unnecessarily stressful endeavours.  Thus allowing you to spend your time on more enjoyable activities with people that you actually want to be with.