When less is more

Money certainly does make the world go round, but does it make you happier? Questionable. In theory I would say that it makes life easier. But with more money, comes more problems.

At no point in this post am I claiming that poverty is anywhere close to my own experiences. I have had a very good upbringing which has enabled me to go to university and have a secure and stable career. I have had the opportunity to start and run my own businesses and have a host of job roles to add to my basic salary. Whilst I worked extremely hard, often having two, three (and when I became a parent, four!) job roles at the same time, my earning potential increased.

The question is, did it make me happier? Well firstly no. It released some pressure financially, but happy is not the world I would use to explain it. Because I was often stressed, over-worked and vacant from friends and family.

Because the truth is, the more you earn, the more you have to work for it! A salary increase does not come easy. There is often more responsibility attached to it. More stress. This was something I thrived on early on in my career. I was ambitious and determined to prove myself at any cost. But when parenthood started, I looked at my earnings and job roles very differently. Suddenly, an extra £1500 to do an additional role wasn’t worth it. After tax, that’s close to £60 a month. £15 a week, £3 per day. Wow. And that responsibility was taking up more time, effort and energy than my standard, basic salaried role! How sad. How sad that an ambitious, talented person could be knocked back and under-utilised so easily.

And then, every role starts to look like this. Why do extra when you can earn well just doing the basic role?

Here’s why…… because life is more than work! It took me a long time to see this. It took more important people to enter my life for me to see this. It doesn’t matter what little ‘extra’ you can provide me. It won’t be worth the crazy effort I need to put in. Because time with family is more important. The more I want to earn, the more I need to work, and the less time I spend with them. Counter-productive right?

Don’t get me wrong, it is hard. It’s hard knowing that your additional talents are wasted. That you could do something better than someone else. That your career is at a stalemate. But maybe it’s just how it is right now. It might not be like that forever. Because on the effort versus earning scale, I’m well balanced right now!

I look at people I know who earn 3 times my salary. Yes, they’re very well off, they have a nice house and they pay for dinner out! But they work double the hours I do, are constantly stressed and every other word out of their mouth is about work. Who wants that?!

I’m a hardworking person. I love to work. But will I look back and think, I wish I’d worked harder? Or will I look back and think, I wish I’d spent more time with this person or that person? Will I say, I wish I’d earned more money? Or I wish I’d been happier?

I know one thing for certain, I work to live. I do not live to work!

Modestlywrapped x