Nobal Glomad

“I can’t keep up with myself at the moment!” a friend SMS’d me this morning. How ironic. She’d just given me the perfect opener for this week’s article focusing on the busy factor that’s rapidly consuming our right to having a life.

On that note… how is your week going? Are you barely managing to cope with the obscene amount of ‘to-do’ parked in your unread email box? The last thing you have right now is the time to read another self-ranting article by Josh. The next 5 minutes could be far more efficiently used to re-check your email you just checked, re-schedule another very unimportant meeting, cancel your dreading it in the first place lunch date, update your ‘Places’ in Facebook, watch a hilarious dog dancing clip on YouTube and log-in to review your well diversified but slightly bullish share portfolio.

I remember sitting in primary school being told our vision for a better future. What the world would be like when we were the big people. Quality of life would improve. We would work less… 3 or 4 days a week instead of 5 or 6. There would be more time apportioned to life experience rather than paper pushing. With efficiency and advancements in technology we would all be happier and better off.

Now in 2011 we all have mobile phones (name one person you know that doesn’t), desktop computers, laptop computers, iPads, home theatre systems, integrated bluetooth car systems, point accruing swipe n’ go credit cards, voice and facial recognition, MP3 players, white noise machines, digital pro-sumer SLRs, e-books, SMS… and email. These advancements have certainly hit the streets. But what’s been the impact? Well we all talk a lot more, we micro-plan everything, we can work anywhere, we are no longer incommunicado, we don’t take the time to browse a record store, we take a whole lot more photos, we never share photo prints with our mates, libraries are the new over-shelved dust-busting museums, and email means we demand immediate attention, action and response right now to a lot of important life threatening fluff. Patience is gone… daddy we want our pony right now.

Today we need more, demand more ‘must-haves’, desire more to make our daily to-do’s quicker, faster and more productive. But with all this want comes the inevitable need to work harder, the need to succeed becomes far more competitive as the bar is raised, and if you’re not cutting the mustard you’ll fall a whole lot further. The stakes are high and if you don’t jump onboard you’re out.

It seems we all aspire to invest more time into ‘the slave of complexity’ with the hope it will result in simplicity. To have the time to be with one another, share good times with each other, and be content. Will we really only have the space for this when we’re retired? What exactly is ‘retirement’? A congratulatory medal granting us the right to stop, read the paper every day, knit, fart and wait to die? In my latter years do I hope to achieve the company of friends and family, morning walks, sit in a café reading Hemmingway, stroll a beach, plunge into the ocean?

No… I want this now.

Happiness is not a Porsche Boxster (bald-man Mambo shirt wearing ugliness personified) or a 3D Plasma TV 12 speaker home theatre system (watch that fad fizzle). These high priced desires go straight for the jugular…pure unadulterated material addiction. Smack me up with Italian leather detail, the thinnest profile LCD with avalanche bass. It’s all available for my immediate wallet sucking gratification but I know deep down the hit won’t last. Sure I love beautiful aesthetic and appreciate excellence in design, but we don’t need the 4-car garage and multi-storied rendered mansion to make our day-to-day lives richer and fulfilled.

Sydney’s Wolseley Road in Point Piper was recently crowned the ninth priciest address in the world according to the ‘Financial News’. That puts us just behind New York’s 5^th Avenue and Hong Kong’s Severn Road. The most expensive property bought on our local gold gilded strip recently went under the hammer for a cool $44 million… that’s just over $7 million a bedroom. It’s not just me … that’s just true blue material craving insanity.

We all know the cost of living in Sydney is currently chart topping the world stage. In the last 20 or so years we’ve managed to shift from ‘No Worries mate’ to ‘Mate I’m about to bloody pop’. Tell your fellow parent’s committee members you’re a stay at home significant other and watch the look of ‘fail’ wash around the room. Gone are the days of working mum disapproval (in the 70’s it was mum who wore the apron). Clearly you have it way to good. You’re too stupid, or just too God damn lazy to be able to have a career. You’re a failure. How can you live with yourself?

Right now my life sits in a 3m x 3m storage space somewhere in the Inner West costing me more a fortnight than it does to travel around India for a month. I know when it’s all unpacked there will be the initial oohs and ahhs…“I LOVE this, gosh I LOVE that painting and that bedside table lamp is deviiiine… what a find.” The reality is that in these past two years since turning the lock n’ key on this shed there’s nothing I’ve missed in those stacked boxes. Not one single important possession… and more importantly it’s been the best two years of my life.

Stepping off the expected path is at first inconceivable. “Yeah yeah it’s ok for you Josh, your life is far less tied down than mine.” Believe me it was, and I know for sure life will again throw me the busy curveball sometime in the future. There is a move towards ‘not good enough’ going on though. Look at Matthew Evan’s ‘The Gourmet Farmer’ on SBS who went from being one of Australia’s most notorious restaurant critics to sea changing for a small farm in Tasmania. Nothing’s ended… he’s opened a new life changing chapter and at the same time scored a TV deal out of it. Nice.

It’s your choice to get busy, to get caught up in the craziness of your life. No one’s making you do it. You might have petulant but unconditionally loveable kids to feed, you might have debt on the doorstep, you might have lost out on a retiring business deal, but you still have the right to decide… to choose not to take it all on.

All I’m asking is that you push your lateral thinking a little. Step out of your day-to-day box and take a good stand-back look at it. Challenge your ‘ok’ and maybe tell someone today you’re not available for a meeting and don’t check your email until lunchtime. Take your kids to school in the morning and be an hour late. Be good to yourself and the people around you.

The world won’t end. The sun will still be up tomorrow. People will still like you. If there’s a resulting hiccup then maybe that’s a good thing. Focus on living rather than just surviving.

Enjoy. Live. Love.