"Doing it tough" - Life ≠ consumption. Value ≠ price.

This one gets to the heart of what ‘Enough’ was meant to be about when I first conceived it. I was thinking about a podcast and asking people what they thought the word “enough” meant. That never had legs. ‘Too much work, and I’m not looking for celebrity-style self-promotion. So, I went with a nuanced version in writing; this ‘newsletter’ – quick reading ideas that could wrap around the word “enough”.

Anyway, where I live, I keep hearing that “hard-working families are doing it tough”. Is that happening where you live, too? I have a friend who is just a couple of years younger than me and lives in the most expensive area in our biggest city – Auckland. He’s big into “personal responsibility”. I know a fair number of people like this. This friend is always tired, stressed, and has a “big mortgage”. They explained that our choices come with hefty price tags if we want to live in “the best” areas. I can’t get my head around this. Obviously, “best” = “most expensive”… I live on a hill, on a few acres, in a smallish house, surrounded by rural land, overlooking the sea. I don’t live in an expensive area. I don’t have a mortgage or any debts, and I have a bit of liquidity such that I don’t feel the need to squeeze every $dollar out of every moment. As my friend explained to me – it’s my choice to settle for that kind of life…

This person is nice, by the way, and we get along just fine. They accept my low standards, and I find their acceptance of me a constant source of amusement.

The ingrained attitude that people who don’t aspire to live in the most expensive places they can get credit for (note, I did NOT say “afford”) are in some way lazy and morally inferior comes from the early 80s. This was when the great unwashed like me were sold the idea of “Greed is good”. Individual responsibility. Upwardly mobile, Yuppies; remember them? A person who is relatively poor according to their outward displays of wealth is a moral failure. Anyone protesting their situation is feckless and needs to shut up and get a job.

One of the most rewarding things I do is helping people as a financial therapist/ counsellor for an EAP provider. I have private clients, too, and the work is usually similar. I’ve helped many EAP clients over the last few years. I’m here to tell you that the “choices” people make that get them to ask me for help all have the same root. Consumption. Consumption at the very deliberate direction of a powerful, ubiquitous Capitalist machine. You see, it’s not just poor people, people on low earnings that come to me for help; some of my clients are making great money… they are all spending it, and they don’t know why, or precisely what, and have debts that are now limiting their ability to keep up appearances. Worse – even the expensive credit is getting harder to get.

For many years, when interest rates were low, I tried so hard to get people to listen to the certainty that it would not last. I tried so hard to convince people not to buy the “best” (most expensive things they could get credit for) but to invest in understanding the value of their lives and the enjoyment that can come from sticking two fingers up to what Consumerist Capitalism is trying to do to us. To reintroduce the idea of saving and the excitement and anticipation of buying something because it’s of great value to them, functional, and even beautiful. To turbo-charge the repayment of debt while it’s low, so it isn’t still there when it gets expensive, scarce, or both. A few people got the memo. Fellow recovering drunks and addicts have been the most obsessive about all this value-based living, and there are some people I’ve helped who are now debt-free and racking up savings and investments.

So, and this will be unpopular, but hey… when I hear “doing it tough”, I do find myself wondering what choices people think they’ve made – free from the wiles of massively cunning marketing and sales techniques, weighing things up in an unbiased way, having “done their research” (on google and social media mainly). I do think about the maths involved in making debts go away and living a life which has a reducing reliance on impressing other people who are constantly trying to outdo each other with their debt-ridden displays of conspicuous consumption…

What I do in therapy usually has a financial aspect because most of the manifestations of stress, anxiety, conflict, and even somatic illness that I help with are eased and alleviated by bringing people to the realisation that what they think are the great choices they’ve made (that means they end up asking me for help), are not actually choices they’ve made. They’ve been sold their sanity by a machine replacing leisure and the ability to self-author their lives with consumption. Buying the right things shows how free you are, and you can buy whatever you like… so long as you’re BUYING, then you’re free.

Gentle readers. Freedom is not fully available, but what is available is a value-based life that revolves around the experience of becoming. I would add to that creativity. Do as much as possible with as little as possible – wring the value out of things, see what’s possible with what you have, and not what’s sold to you. What things do you need? They may be excellent or even luxurious, so consider them carefully and have them as you can afford them. There is joy in this.

Above all, I say to you that renting your life from the bank, or the credit card company, or the finance company, to keep up with the ‘lifestyle’ that everyone else who’s up to their ears in debt (most people, no matter how rich they appear, are up to their ears in debt) is showing off, is a fool's game. Indeed, use debt when there is no other way, but do so wisely and limit it as much as possible. Think about what you need, not what you can get credit for and have now. To me, choosing not to get involved in that game of display and entitlement but living well ‘enough’ is taking personal responsibility.

If it helps, I can testify to the fact that when you get out of the rented life game as soon as you can, and you can afford to spend a bit more on things, you don’t buy so much; you do buy better, and the enjoyment is so much sweeter.