Lifestyle

I was talking with a friend yesterday about lifestyles.  She has chosen to work at a company that pays her a lot less than the last one, but with a lot less stress.  I have chosen to work 0.8 time instead of full time.  I sometimes get questions about why I do this, but generally people say that if they could swing it they would do the same thing.  My friend was saying that when things were so stressful for her she had to decide what kind of lifestyle she wanted and what she needed to do to get it.

Choosing to work part time was the first time I ever really thought about this question.  It is so easy to go along and let our income determine our lifestyles.  For a long time for me, this meant finding ways to keep the spending down as my income was pretty small.  Since 2002 when I started my so-called "career" path, I have really let my income determine my lifestyle, but the truth be told, for most of that time I was a lot less happy then when I wasn't making very much and getting by.

So, let's talk about my life since 2008 when I moved to a new city and got a job I like.  I was still working full time.  I also was spending money without really thinking about it.  When I crashed out last year and started on the process of looking at what I really want from life, work was a big part of that.  I do like my job, but I was finding I was till taking a lot of sick days from the depression, or healing process.  Work was till taking up all my energy and I found I didn't have much left for other things, other things that I value a lot.

Last summer I made the decision to cut my work hours.  A few things have happened since then.  I have had one sick day for depression.  I have energy to watch my nephew once a month.  I visit my parents more.  I get out and socialize sometimes.  And, and this is the big one,  I like my life a whole lot better.  It feels more balanced.  I am managing just fine on the reduced income, without a lot of big changes.  I like my lifestyle just fine.  Finding balance has been challenging for me.  I'm still working on it in a lot of aspects of my life, but at least on this one front, it seems to be working.

This has been a valuable lesson for me in more ways than one.  If and when I decide to change jobs, I need to really think about what I want in a job, and what kind of lifestyle I want also.  For me, it's not about getting the next dollar, or the next raise.  It's about so many other things.