Category Archives: serious

redefining wealth

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It’s definitely a confusing time for many people at the moment. I’m sure that a lot of people have started to realize their so called wealth during the boom years was really just an illusion, and like any illusion, it can quickly vanish. Many people who used to feel wealthy no longer actually are. Many people have started to question why they’re working longer, doing less things they enjoy and spending less time with their family and yet they’re no better off.

Most definitions of wealth are about abundant valuable material possessions, all of which are worth a lot less now. One of the positive outcomes of these times is that I think we’ll see a better definition of wealth emerge, wealth meaning we can lead a better life instead of just having a lot more shit.

rose-in-hands

In my opinion, being wealthy isn’t about:

  • owning heaps of shit and having to work 70 hours a week just to afford to pay for it all;
  • working so much that you need to pay others to care for your family whilst you work;
  • having a hugely expensive house that requires multiple incomes just to pay it off and constantly worrying about how much it is worth;
  • using your home equity as an constant ATM because it is suddenly worth so much;
  • owning the biggest and latest SUV to drive your children around in, polluting the planet and ripping up the roads whilst doing so;
  • having absolutely no savings, but heaps of assets (and debt) that supposedly only ever go up in value;
  • having no control over your life because all the decisions you make are financial and are about getting ahead.

To me, being wealthy is actually about:

  • having just enough to live comfortably;
  • having savings that enable you to make decisions about what is right/wrong;
  • being generous with your time and money, to make others lives better;
  • being able to spend time with your family;
  • being able to do things you enjoy as much as you like;
  • not trying to continually compare how much you own to others, just being happy with what you’ve got and what you do;
  • being happy that the value of your house stays the same, so you only make improvements for yourself rather than what you think will make it worth more to others.

So hopefully out of these tough times we will see  a new definition of wealth emerge, and once the dust settles, we can actually work at becoming truly wealthy, the kind of wealth that can’t disappear overnight.

Photo by Hamed Saber (Creative Commons)

zen & the art of bonsai gardening

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I’ve been having an ongoing (email) debate with someone from work about the whole buying vs renting, and living in apartments vs living in houses thing.

The discussion has been fairly healthy as I am pretty happy with how I have things set up at the moment.

Suddenly the conversation got a bit personal when they said:

Wouldn’t it be nice to have 50m2 of backyard to do some real gardening, and not just battle with small pots and tiny plants?

I was quite offended at what I had read, especially considering I read it just after I just got back from the beach on North Stradbroke collecting shells to use as decorations on some of my bonsai trees and potted succulents which provide me with so much pleasure.

shells-from-stradbroke

There are many reasons I found the statement offensive:

  1. It assumes that you can’t get pleasure out of ‘small pots and tiny plants’. I completely and uterly disagree and I am not alone in my views: the Chinese and Japanese have been getting pleasure from small plants for thousands of years.  A small garden requires less overall maintenance so you can spend more time individually growing each plant.
  2. The statement also assumes that a large (50m2) garden will provide a large amount of pleasure. A larger garden requires more overall maintenance and therefore might be less pleasurable as most of the time will be doing unpleasant things such as weeding and mowing, hence less time caring for your plants. This recent article shows that most houses don’t even have gardens anyway!
  3. I show great pride in my succulents and bonsais. I have even written numerous blog posts about our plants when I haven’t even heard this person mention what they have growing in their garden, ever.
  4. I do things such as collect stones and shells for my pot plants, grow cuttings, make plant gifts and attend markets looking for new plants.
  5. The comment reminds me of the rampant Australian bigger is better mentality. I dislike the view that bigger is better. I see so many people go and buy large 4WDs and SUVs because they demand a big car to transport their family around in. I grew up in a family of six (four very active, large boys) and we never had an SUV and we were fine!. These people demand a large house with a large garden, and a home theatre with a large TV. They probably even want a large garage to hold their SUVs and their large boat. Our small apartment with a small garden on our small balcony means we can focus on what matters most in our lives. We can get rid of clutter and enjoy what we have. Even the Americans are switching on and building much smaller homes and apartments.

So, the answer to the question is no, it wouldn’t be nice. I am perfectly happy at the moment with my small garden and small plants in small pots and I will continue to update this blog as my plants mature.

I challenge the writer of the email to post some photos of his plants and his garden on his blog.

the fall of the athenian republic

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I received an email today entitled “The Fall of the Athenian Republic” from a well read friend. He compares what’s happening at the moment in Australian Parliament to what happened in Greek history.

The current debate in parliament brought this to mind, I had to look up the exact wording:

Quote from “The Fall of the Athenian Republic” as to why the Greek democracies failed:

“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.”

I thought it was a really cool connection. You can read about it on Wikipedia.

i wanted to be a dentist

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When I was growing up, I wanted to be a dentist. I don’t particularly know why, but I think it was because I wanted to be rich and the richest person I knew was my dentist. It didn’t help that I was considered the smart child in my family so my parents had expectations that I would go to Uni when I finished school and move into a professional job.

I took my dental intentions right through to junior high school and not long into year ten I had to decide where I would spend a week doing ‘work experience’ to glimpse inside the facets of the working world, to which one day I would belong. Predictably, I chose to spend a week with my dentist.

After a week of standing next to my dentist and peering into the mouths of many people all day, I, surprisingly, no longer wanted to be a dentist. And why? I really didn’t like the grossness of some mouths (like cars, most people only see a dentist when there’s a problem) , but I thought I could get used to it. I didn’t like the mandatory small talk either, but again I believed it would somehow become easier with time. The thing that absolutely killed my dental dream was that most of the mouths I peered into for a week belonged to people who didn’t want to be there. Most of these people loathed going to the dentist, and I really didn’t want to be someone who people hated coming to see.

The Unscrupulous Parking Inspector

A few weeks ago I had to drop some things off at work so I drove in about seven am in the car. I gave Kitty a lift in as well, and so I pulled off a busy city street into a loading zone to quickly drop K off (sans kiss). Little did I know that the half of the loading zone I stopped in was a commercial loading zone; only the other half was reserved for passengers. An unscrupulous parking inspector was hiding nearby and took the opportunity to pounce. There’s no measure small enough to express the time from when I pulled in til when he began creating an electronic parking infringement. I quickly pulled out of the spot but it didn’t stop him having a go at K and ruining her morning.

I see parking inspectors up there with taxation auditors and dentists in the professions that people hate dealing with. I’m not sure you’d have a lot of people talk to you at a party if you said you were one. But it’s no wonder that people hate parking inspectors, considering their behaviour. Parking in a disabled spot without a permit is definitely never ok (it’s NEVER OK), but accidentally pulling into the wrong end of a loading zone on a busy city street for less than 30 seconds to drop off a loved one surely doesn’t warrant a parking infringement. This guy isn’t making the world a better place by fining me and ruining Kitty’s day.

Walking into work a week later I saw him in the exact same spot doing the exact same thing. I couldn’t help but walk past and have a word with him, whilst I was on foot. I can’t repeat those words here but I can say they’re not dissimilar to what Bernard Fanning once called Ben Lee.

Software

I ended up studying and working in Software. Working in a corporate office setting has meant I have been able to establish some close work friendships; sans small talk.

I try my hardest to make sure that people I work with don’t hate me, and want to see me. Otherwise I would have just studied dentistry.

we need affordable housing not seven grand more

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I’m pretty passionate about housing (un)affordability in Australia. I don’t particular like that young Australians face a life of debt just to afford basic shelter.

It came as a big suprise to see Kevin Rudd (increasingly known as KRudd) basically slap me in the face this week when he announced the doubling/tripling of the first home buyers grant, effectively enabling sellers to ask seven to fourteen grand more for their overpriced properties.

It’s taken a few days for my rage to subside, especially since hearing many, many intelligent people state that this will actually make housing less affordable, just like the introduction of the first home buyers grant initially did.

The most refreshing response I read was ‘Built for shelter, not prosperity‘ by Terry Sweetman:

The purpose of housing, surely, is to provide shelter for people, not to become a commodity; the purpose of government investment should be to put people into accommodation not into mortgages.

But, instead of people rejoicing in the mere fact of home ownership or affordable rental accommodation, spirits soar or crash on the basis of projected market prices.

How extraordinary that we celebrate the rising costs of shelter, one of the most basic of human needs. Would we be so delighted if food and clothing were similarly placed beyond the reach of so many citizens?

I needn’t say more.

3.75 million bucks to catch someone who no longer wants to live

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I read with interest today that American authorities will spend ~US$50 Million (~AUD $75 Million) to build a suicide net on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

Photo by Rich Niewiroski Jr (Creative Commons)

Photo by Rich Niewiroski Jr (Creative Commons)

I understand that suicide is a complex issue but I think this is a very bad idea.

For example, the article says that about 20 people a year commit suicide off the bridge. So in the first year that it is built, US taxpayers are effectively paying $3.75 million to save the life of each person who decides they don’t want to live.

But people who want to kill themselves don’t have to jump from the Golden Gate bridge. There are many other ways to kill yourself, all of which will be drastically more attractive when this net is built.

This net does not address the problem of why people kill themselves in the first place.

I am sure that the $75 million could be better spent on methods to reduce the number of people who want to kill themselves, rather than just encouraging them to do it in a different manner.