Wanting to keep life as simple and uncluttered as possible is one of the main reasons why I’ve stayed unmarried past forty. But now that’s all about to change as I’m due to tie the knot next month. Though I’m clomping about with ice in my shoes, I’m clinging to the hope that the compensations of having a wife will make up for the added baggage and loss of simplicity. Do any of you married guys think it really might work out like that?
You are supposed to get older and wiser, Omni, not older and buy into the mythology that you have always known to be untrue. 
Or is it as a friend of mine said: “I just didn’t want to go through all the BS of looking for another girl. So I married her [his gf].”
I look at people who get married as a kind of emotional cripples. I don’t look down on them anymore than I don’t look down on someone with only one arm, but I do feel that they have become disadvantaged. Unless you have found something that is ultra-rare and you yourself, and her, are also extrodinary, I would keep to the adage: Why buy a cow when milk is so cheap?
But this is mute; you are committed past the point of no return. And I am technically not married.
[By the way, you want a simple life? Don’t make much money. That is the key. Make just enough to click over. Too much makes it complex; too little and it becomes complex too.]
I recommend Zoloft.
Hmmm. I’m having a hard time believing you were serious when writing this, but on the off chance that you weren’t joking: you must be frogging joking, Wolf!
Why marry? Let me count the ways. For having children, for comfort, for security, because you love someone enough to commit.
If for no other reason, then perhaps because married people live longer, on average, than unmarried people – especially men.
Tomas, you mentioned in many of your posts that you have a hectic schedule. May I ask what it is you do? Do you have a full-time job and have extra work? A full-time job with side projects? Your own businsess? Are you a teacher? A writer (someone mentioned a book with your picture in it, I think)?
I don’t know you at all, but I am curious how you got in this position. If you are your own boss and can make your own schedule.
So, this has happened before. In the same field? What were you doing before where you “got so good at something that opportunities come in a constant flow”? If it happened before, how did you handle it then?
[quote]
I’m very fond now of my lifestyle three years ago, when I first returned to Taiwan. I had a simple apartment, low expenses, worked 50 hours a week instead of 80, and had time to get out and play. [/quote]
Why can’t you have that again? Move back to a simple apartment, work fifty hours a week instead of 80. Heck, work twenty hours a week for a while. Or better still, take a few months off. If you are working so many hours, then you must have saved a pile of loot. Do you have debts or student loans to pay off? If not, and you are not married and have no kids, then why don’t you just take a few months off. Or go travel.
But if you just want a return to the simpler days of three years ago, I think it is certainly possible, if you want to give up some of the money you are making.
80 hours a week? 16 hours a day? Teaching? Writing? Consulting? Selling? Editing? Managing?
I am curious to read what you have to say. Of course, I respect your privacy and you don’t have to provide specific answers to the questions.
I have some flexibility about when I work. In some of what I do, I find economies of scale that allow me to get away with 30 hours a week per job, sometimes.
I really enjoy what I do. It fits very well with my skill-set, and keeps me energized and engaged, most of the time.
When this has happened in the past and I’ve gotten too busy, I have kept with it until I could find an honorable way out. For example, I once had three part-time gigs and one full-time in the U.S. I found replacements for two of the part-time gigs and kept one part-time and the full-time one. I have committed myself to doing what I’m doing for another two years.
I am not married but I do have more financial obligations that the typical youngish single guy.
I could certainly go back to the simple life now (believe me, I think about it from time to time), but I’d pass up a chance to do some things down the road are very important to me. It isn’t that I’m afraid of change. I was the president of a small tea company, a homeowner, and very involved in the community when I up and left for Taiwan. I wasn’t running from anything, just felt that I needed a big change. I had lived in Taiwan as a missionary and had come back on business several times.
There’s the added factor of people who rely on me to do what I’m doing. I sold them on me and promised them that I would help them accomplish their goals. If I quit, I’d let those people down in a big way. Some of you think that’s bullshit, too old-school. I think it matters.
Sorry to be vague, but I don’t know most of the posters here personally.
i know the topic has meandered a bit so i hope i’m not to late to add my two cents?
meditation. i’m serious. it works. spend 30 minutes a day doing nothing, erasing your thoughts. you’ll feel like you had 2 hours of down time.
that, and a book called Margin Theory. i forget the author. heard of it?
[quote=“wolf_reinhold”]You are supposed to get older and wiser, Omni, not older and buy into the mythology that you have always known to be untrue.
Or is it as a friend of mine said: “I just didn’t want to go through all the BS of looking for another girl. So I married her [his gf].”
I look at people who get married as a kind of emotional cripples. I don’t look down on them anymore than I don’t look down on someone with only one arm, but I do feel that they have become disadvantaged. Unless you have found something that is ultra-rare and you yourself, and her, are also extrodinary, I would keep to the adage: Why buy a cow when milk is so cheap?
But this is mute; you are committed past the point of no return. And I am technically not married.
[By the way, you want a simple life? Don’t make much money. That is the key. Make just enough to click over. Too much makes it complex; too little and it becomes complex too.][/quote]
Of the emotional cripples that I come accross on a daily basis , wether they are married or not does not seem to be a great influence. Many of the married & technically unmarried guys ( & women for all I know) I know seem to prefer the option of both owning a cow & going out for some different flavoured milk when they have the urge hence getting the best of both worlds.
Re; Not earning much money. It is obsession with material possessions that makes life complicated not having a lot of money. Money gives you “choice” & to me choice is what its all about. ie You can choose to go on 3 holidays a year or buy that car if you want to or have an Amah do all your house work. Or you can choose not to. One of my friends has earned a lot of money & he is making the chioice to retire very early & travel. He wants to lead a simple (yet fairly luxurious) life & the money gives him the choice to do that.
Thanks for the answers, Tomas.
[quote]
I have two full-time jobs, each of which is multi-faceted. [/quote]
Wow! I thought I was busy with one job.
Actually, it sounds as if you already have a plan. This plan includes living a simple life after you have reached a certain level of financial security (“the land of critical mass” for any of you Bob Brinker fans out there.)
So, to be frank, I think that the original title of this thread is misleading. From what I understand, you do not want to simplify your life now–you already have a plan to do that in two years. After two years, then you will have all the free time in the world to hike, go to museums, read, write, and so on.
It seems what you are really looking for is stress-management tips or ideas for how to survive the two years of lots of work until you reach your goal.
Scooter’s recommendation of meditation is great. You mention that you go to the gym–that’s good, too.
So, I don’t think, as your original post seemed to indicate, that you really want to simplify your life at all now. On the contrary, you should be taking on more work and doing more freelance jobs to reach your goal of the simple life. Or change the plan from two to five years and ease up on the work–maybe one full-time job, plus some outside part-time gigs.
If you are able to work these two jobs and be productive and happy doing this–all the more power to you. However, if you feel things slipping in any way–health, mental health, performance at either job, productivity, happiness–then you may have to re-evaluate.
I’m from the “old school” myself and I respect a person who keep his or her word. But if you are running yourself ragged for other people, then perhaps you have to look at how you got in that position. Did you over-promise what you could do? Learn from this.
Also, if you are being so well-compensated, take a cut in pay and use that to hire a capable assistant or a part-time worker for the tea job (or whatever it is 
).
I don’t know you, either. Except from this thread. I do wish you the best of luck with things. You have a plan. You will be living the simple life soon, if that’s what you want. Besides going to the gym, perhaps you can blow off steam here at Forumosa by posting. That might make the next two years a bit easier to manangae.
Cut out activities that drain precious time. That could be TV, or a leisurely read of the paper in the morning, or for many people it is commuting. With 2 jobs, Tomas, you may be wasting a lot of time in traffic. I have 1 job and it takes me 15 minutes to get to the office, so that’s just a 1/2 hour per day. Not bad. I remember when I taught English all over town I spent maybe 2 or 3 hours a day commuting, time that could’ve been spent working, working out or sleeping.
Actually, that was one of the reasons I got a bike. When I was going to the gym it took over 2 hours for a workout, when one considers commuting, showering, changing and all that. Now, I bike right out the door and get a great workout in less than an hour. Plus, my bike cost the equivalent of 1 month at the gym (when one factors in transport), so I’m saving heaps of money as well.
Where are you wasting precious time? How can you be more efficient with it?
Oh, and if you have a great plan for just 2 years from now that depends on your pile of loot, then just hang in there. Two years is nothing. It’ll fly by and will be worth it in the long run. That’s what I’m doing – working hard and saving money for the big plan. But hopefully you can enjoy life in the meantime.
On transport: I own a m/c, but hardly ever use it. Why get stressed fighting traffic when i can sit on the MRT (or in a taxi) doing more useful tasks that may have to be done later otherwise. Phone calls, lesson planning, email (if you have the right PDA) can all be done on the go, and never underestimate the value of being able to read the paper or veg out.
We all need some downtime, why waste it trying to avoid death or serious injury in the pissing rain? That said, I love my moto and there are times when travelling somewhere is a pleasure rather than a task.
Oh, one more thing. Plans don’t always work out, and sometimes there’s nothing you can do about some of the reasons why. If you’re not making time for the here and now, you may never enjoy the future.
I met a woman once who had given it all up and set off around the world after attending a colleague’s retirement party. The retiree was too sick to attend.
[quote=“stragbasher”]
Oh, one more thing. Plans don’t always work out, and sometimes there’s nothing you can do about some of the reasons why. If you’re not making time for the here and now, you may never enjoy the future.
.[/quote]
This is very true. Reminds me of the saying ( I cant remember the movie) “Life is the thing that happens to you while yuo are making plans for the future”. It also links to happiness. Studies show that happier people spent most of their mental time in the present ie are not to preoccupied with either the past or the future.
Yup… you should enjoy the process more than the result. It’s best to evaluate your life based on what you did today rather than what you will achieve a week/month/year/decade from now.
[quote=“wolf_reinhold”] I would keep to the adage: Why buy a cow when milk is so cheap?
[/quote]
I am reminded of a friend who came here with his wife and turned to me one night and said.
"God I really did bring a big apple into an orchard’
I agree 100%. I’m the guy sitting in the corner of the last car getting more work done than he will during the first hour at work fending off colleagues and phone calls, annoying bosses, randos that want things translated for their children’s college essays, and guards waving mail and special delivery packages.
I have used my 30 minute commute in the morning to prep for work, and the 30 minute commute in the evening to better myself–read articles that pile up on my desk, listen to Taiyu tapes, read literature about how to do my job better…
With weird hours I always have a seat and I’m rarely late. Can’t complain.
Yes, scuba and scooter, I agree that one should enjoy life every day because (a) one might get run over by a truck tomorrow and (b) if one is always planning for the future one might never learn to slow down and enjoy life in the present.
But, sometimes preparing for the future is good too. I’m working hard and saving responsibly now because I goofed off for so long. I know a 48 year-old English teacher in Taipei who teaches no more than 10 hours a week. How will he retire? How can he even travel and play in foreign lands?
I don’t think work is inherently bad. Although I’d like to go mountain biking as AWOL does, or party on Grigg’s Island, or even hang out on Sunday with the Game Club, I don’t have the time. But I enjoy my job, I’m saving up money and I DO enjoy my present life, even if it spent working in front of the computer. So, I don’t feel that working hard towards a future goal and enjoying life in the present need to be mutually exclusive. But if one is miserable in ones present life than I agree with you 100%, it’s time for a change.
[quote=“Mother Theresa”]Yes, scuba and scooter, I agree that one should enjoy life every day because (a) one might get run over by a truck tomorrow and (b) if one is always planning for the future one might never learn to slow down and enjoy life in the present.
But, sometimes preparing for the future is good too. I’m working hard and saving responsibly now because I goofed off for so long. I know a 48 year-old English teacher in Taipei who teaches no more than 10 hours a week. How will he retire? How can he even travel and play in foreign lands?
I don’t think work is inherently bad. Although I’d like to go mountain biking as AWOL does, or party on Grigg’s Island, or even hang out on Sunday with the Game Club, I don’t have the time. But I enjoy my job, I’m saving up money and I do enjoy my present life, even if it spent working in front of the computer. So, I don’t feel that working hard towards a future goal and enjoying life in the present need to be mutually exclusive. But if one is miserable in ones present life than I agree with you 100%, it’s time for a change.[/quote]
I completely agree. Preparing for the future is important. I have always felt that to be young & relatively poor is OK but to be older & poor is not where you want to be. I want to have the choices that money brings particularly as I get older. However , I am not going to sacrifice my happiness today for a few extra bucks.
One of lifes great challenges is getting the balance right between work & the rest of life. Ideally you find a niche that allows both to enjoy your job, have time for mountain biking & holidays & be able to save for the future.
I have currently found that balance , but I never take it for granted as you never know what is round the next corner both professionally & personally. Collecting material stuff is not too important to me at the moment . I actually own very little because my company provides house, car etc etc. As I have accumulated more money I have consciously tried not to increase my materialism on the basis that if it all ended tomorrow my lifestyle would not have to change hugely. Though I would miss the nice holidays. To me simplicity is good but only so long as I am choosing to lead a simple life. To be forced to live a simple life
because there is no alternative is another matter.
Whoa there fella! Don’t rush to a conclusion so quickly. I do yearn for a simpler life, and certainly, per MT’s argument, there are ways in which a very busy person can cut the fat from his schedule to make life simpler. I was looking for those sorts of ideas. I also re-evaluate what I’m doing from time to time. I think best when I can get my thoughts down or paper or speak them out loud, and I also find it helpful to have insights from others who have thought about the same thing. I am looking to simplify life. There are things I will give up to do that, there are things I won’t.
Also, if you are being so well-compensated, take a cut in pay and use that to hire a capable assistant or a part-time worker for the tea job (or whatever it is :wink: ).There you go again with those assumptions 
.
One of Tomas’ great misunderstandings there. He thinks I’m his assistant studmuffin because I’m helping him get better at it.
The pupil doesn’t even recognise the master!
Well, being that this is a thread on a forum, I have to go ahead and make some assumptions. If we were sitting in a pub having a beer (though with your schdule I’m not sure that this would be possible) with you, I could make these statements and you could correct me.
As it is know, I have to throw out my ideas (based on my limited knowledge of what you are doing–let’s see–two full-time jobs, authoring a GEPT book, a tea company) cobbled together from what I’ve learned from this thread.
So, let’s see–you want a simpler life now (not a simple life), and then a simple life in the future (according to the two year plan you mentioned). Is that right? I don’t want to “go again with those assumptions.”
Tomas, I don’t know you at all, but I know that you’ll be fine. I think your thread was just a way to blow off some steam and maybe pick up a few suggestions about “balancing one’s life.”
And, finally, I think if you keep working so many hours, then eventually one day, your body will make a choice for you and you’ll have to slow down. So, I do think that is wise that you are being proactive and looking at how to live a “simpler” life.
Just some random thoughts to end this:
Everyone is busy (It’s not just you). Many people are probably busier than you are.
Nothing can grow or expand forever.
I don’t like children.
I am very comfortable by myself, thank you.
I am very secure.
The apex of love is not a test of commitment. And I can love more than one person at the same time.
But I was talking about me, you see? It’s just not my cup of tea. Neither is getting a big tattoo on my arm, but hey, that’s just me.
Dee: “What were you thinking about?”
Wolf: “I was not thinking of anything specific.”
Dee: “Like what?”