The Bennies of a Simple Life
The nation, and in particular, the state I live in, is in the worst economic condition of my lifetime. I work in an industry that is closely tied to the currently-crises-stricken real estate and lending markets. So it probably seems like a bad time to voluntarily take a 20% cut in pay and tell my boss they can get along fine without me one day a week. But that’s what I did.
The thing is, I want more from my life than a paycheck, and with a full time job, I don’t have the time or energy to do other, more meaningful things with the time left over. It’s one of the great advantages to the “voluntary simplicity” life style – we don’t have a lot of stuff, and we live in an old house that we are renovating slowly, but we don’t have a mortgage, and other than my car payment we have no debt. So I’m in a position where I can look at my life and decide that having time to do things that are meaningful to me is worth a 20% pay cut.
So now for the hard part – how will I put this new-found wealth of time to good use?! I am already resolved to getting involved with my local Neighborhood Association and I am looking at joining a City board – these will be good ways to become more engaged in my local community, but they don’t fulfill that need to get involved in a way that makes a difference. I seem to have a special soft spot for the homeless and poverty-stricken – there are a couple of local organizations who work with that population to help improve their situations, or better, help teach them the skills to help themselves. I’m not sure where I’ll land with that, and it will likely be a process of investigating various opportunities. I can’t wait to dive in!
(Thank you, Emmot, for giving me the courage and support to walk the walk.)
posted by 10-8-ious | 8:42 PM
3 Comments:
Good for you. I'm kind of doing the same thing...except for taking a cut in pay and working less. I'm joining the local Habitat-for-Humanity board and am getting more and more involved in community activist groups.
As you know I'm back to lawyering and I've found that the poor arebeing grossly under-served. I'm working, in my small way to rectify that.
Drop me a line sometime, I'd love to catch up non what's going on in your life.
RJB
Good for you RJ -- watch out -- you'll be a democrat before you know it!
Habitat is a good organization I served on the board of one of their chapters years ago. When they are in a community that is supportive, they really do great things -- and it's not a hand out -- they help people to help themselves and to take on responsibility.
Community Activists Groups?! Shit, RJ - you're already a democrat and you don't even know it! (ha ha)
Can I get an AMEN SISTER! It's about time that you did this - you are meant to do great things and you will! At the end of the day who needs all that money anyway? It just leads our society to more and more greed. Have fun searching!
gloriagirl
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