Submitted by nwillis on
in
Forums
My motivation for asking this question is because many areas of my life are changing at once and i feel the need to ask these questions now that dramatic changes in my life are possible.
Over the years i have had many email addresses. Now i have just a few. i regret being undisciplined with them so that now i am sanitising my in-box and banishing all junk. I still have a mobile phone number from my teenage days that is now too well known without my consent and as my circumstances are dramatically changing i am thinking of purging all my strands of contact.
This will no doubt make some people unhappy as i hope to do without a mobile number and email.
Financially i have very few bank accounts. Also i only have two direct debits. One for a professional body (over 20 years old) and one for my mobile phone contract ( soon to be discontinued). All my bills i pay in person , through our post office or using my credit card. So my essential products will be my current account, savings accounts and credit card. The minimum i need to run my life.
My question: is must i have products and services that others dictate for any form of relationship. Must i have the personal products (mobile phone , email) and financial products (Credit/debit/charge cards various savings/investment products), can i run my life solely on my terms. or must i commit to easy or uneasy compromises. Am i really at liberty to do what i want if i accept the terms or not if i reject them and live just with my decisions ?
What should be the true basis of my life ? Does society today have any common moral basis ?
Well, here's what's worked for me
Hi! Working backwards through your post, noting what's worked for me for your consideration ....
The world seems large enough to have many societies, and I've found there's lots of common ground out there. I'm happiest and at my best when I'm doing work I love and can't wait to do, acting ethically and keeping company with those who also act ethically. Conversations across a much wider swath of "society" suggests to me the parts I cannot influence I just take into account, and be part of raising the basis of what's around me.
True basis of *your* life? That's very personal. I grew into how I express mine over the course of several years as a young adult: "gracious hospitality" with conscious focus on truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. Start with whatever captures you at your ethical best, that is worthy of gifting back to the world as a whole.
As an adult in Western civilization, you are at liberty to make decisions and live by the consequences of those decisions. Some compromise is inevitable because other adults have that same freedom and responsibility, and there's other "hard landscape" we cannot change: bodily concerns, care for children, and such. No specific product or service is required, though most exist to somehow ease dealing with the "hard landscape" and expressing what we most bring to life. Decide what you want to do and why, *then* choose how to realize it, dropping what is unhelpful. Took me decades before a cell-phone was worthwhile; the investments I'm in suit me and my situation perfectly but would not be reasonable for most of my colleagues; I chose to house my family in a certain house because of its location and siting; some former friends drop away and others appear when my interests change; and so on.
As long as you can connect with your chosen friends in some way, which and how many ways are irrelevant. Simplify, pare down, and consider what you are freeing up time for and why. Make space for drawing in what your searches and researches and contemplations bring you.
It's not an easy time ahead of you, just freeing. PM me if you wish. Good luck!
Hi there and many thanks for
Hi there and many thanks for such a simple and succinct response, so i've been able to read your posting several times with ease. I've just been thinking back to the time my Dell Laptop broke down and i decided only to put back on what i needed. Not much as it turns out , but it still works well. I also recall hearing in a Career Tools podcast the ideas of gathering all your project material together on your office table and basicaly have a good sort and re-organize. I never realised what a good idea that is until i did it with one of my major projects, so i'm applying the same principle to my own life becasue i realise i have a once-in-a-lifetime oportunity to do so.I feel really great about embracing an oportunity to do this, a bit rocky at tmes , but still welcome. My first task was to decide what was really important to me and blow me if the answer was not as much as i thought.
Many thanks jrb3 for giving me good things to think about.