In the book they suggest that you start writing down every penny you spend. After just the first month your like holy shit. I began to realize that work was causing me to spend more then I need. It makes you realize that most of our purchases are ego based. 75% of Americans live pay check to pay check. Almost 90% of Americans die in debt. We work all of our lives and have nothing to show for it. We buy things to show others we
made it' or to keep up with our friends and society. Always paying off credit cards, car loans, mortgage payments. Why was I spending insane amounts of money on the 2 vacations I take every year? to get away from work. When I was bored or had a day off why was I going out and buying things to make me feel better that I didn't really need? work. Why was I not cooking food and going out to eat all day? work. Why was I driving an expensive car? work. Why was I spending a fortune on suits and cloths? for work. I could go on forever. Then you look at the fact that if your work 8 hrs your really working like 10. Commute to work, time getting ready, things you have to take care of at home, 'decompression' after work,sleeping extra after a long day..etc.
I looked at my life and realized what I was doing. Ya I got that job I wanted, then that promotion. Went out and bought a new car and a big house. Then I realized wtf is the point? Now I'm giving up my free time and cant do the things I love. Plus I realized the things I love to do don't require a lot of money. Buddhism talks about desire being the source of suffering. This has been true in my experience. The mind desires and lives in a perpetual state of lack. Being at peace with life as is, is the key. What you call boring (living without desire) I call liberation. Yes, on a biological level we do need to survive. It's programmed into us via evolution. However a house, car, electronics, etc. has been conditioned into us by society,media,tv. You really don't need that stuff and you shouldn't waste your life pursuing them.
^^^^wisdom in your post above. Nicely put.
I went through a similar cleansing. I'm no buddhist, but there's truth there. Chuck Palahniuk talks about it in his novel Fight Club. I dumped a lot of work off my plate and simplified my life. I spend time doing what I find myself to be most passionate about. Dumped the stupid expensive car and house, and sunk money into investments in simplified fashion...investments that were more liquid to finance a more liquid lifestyle to my suiting.
The trappings of modern society are many and varied and nearly all are seductive. It's not easy to say no.
You won't find happiness in an increased standard of living. When your standard of living goes up, chances are, your happiness in life is going to go down.
There's some old human resources type study out there that shows that human satisfaction with life in general peaks around the 75K-80K earnings mark. Past that, the job requires much more than people think it does to earn the money, and the sacrifices needed often outweigh the benefits. The money sounds nice up front, but later on, can become an albatross. Likewise, being poor is often not synonymous with happiness.
As humans, we're programmed to want more than yesterday. But we don't realize we don't need as much as we think we do to be happy.