On downgrading lifestyle

From September 2008 onwards, I think majority of the people in North America have downgraded their lifestyle, including us or us in particular.

Is it necessary? I think so. Every time we upgrade our lifestyle. We do not just spend more money once. We basically commit ourselves to spend more on all our future years until we decide to downgrade. The best example is for someone to decide upgrading by moving into a bigger house. All of a sudden you are paying more for mortgage, insurance, property tax, utility and other miscellaneous expenses for the next 25 years or longer. We know we can afford it now, next year and maybe even the next 5 years; that was good enough in 2006, when everyone is living high. But now, one year after the crisis, we are thinking longer term. We are realizing that more is nice and it is human to want more, but less is equally nice and does not make us inhuman.

I myself always prefer less, the way of simple life, which is consistent with my desire for freedom. Less means less obligations and less obligations lead to more freedom. So I choose to live the way I prefer. How wonderful!

However, the whole world cannot live the way I live and most people choose to have more if they can. I salute these people. By consuming what others produce and producing for others to consume, isn’t that the way we are organized to live?

A woman stole from me

A woman just stole two necklaces from me in the store. I was following her with my eyes and then I took my eyes away for a minute to give her some privacy. When I started to look at her again, I noticed one of the necklaces she touched went missing. So I asked her to tell me where she placed it (I was giving her a chance to put it back). She could have said "Oh, I am sorry, I misplaced it here". She could have taken the jewelry out of her pocket and put it on the shelf (I was sure that she dropped into her pocket). Instead, she pretended that she did not understand what I was talking about. So I said to her "You just took a necklace from me, please put it back". She ran out of the door and left. After she was gone, I noticed a 2nd necklace was missing also.

I do not think that she will ever come back to the store, even though one can never be sure. I used to manage a Salvation Army store, and caught a few thieves and banned them from the store. But they kept coming back and kept stealing.

By the way, there is an interesting talk by Dan Ariely regarding stealing, if you care to listen to.

On Gold

Gold is in a bubble, that I have no doubt about it. The price of gold today is about 4 times its value in 2000 and Hugo Chavez is stockpiling them.

There is a great article called"Gold - a six thousand year-old bubble", which describes all I would have liked to say and more about gold.

In line with the opinion of the author of above article about not to argue with a six thousand year – old bubble: I thought that if IMF sold gold, it might have driven down the price. Nope, India just bought 200 tons of gold from IMF two weeks ago and the price of gold continues to go up.

Should gold be considered as an investment vehicle? Not for me. I would buy stocks such as Coca Cola, McDonald etc. any time before I ever consider buying gold. People eat at McDonald and people drink Coca Cola, therefore, both companies have intrinsic value.

Disclosure: I own stocks of Coca Cola.

On Midlife Crisis

I think that almost everybody goes through midlife crisis, but academics disagree. They believe that only 10% of the population who go through age-related midlife crisis. Of course, it all depends how you define midlife crisis. To me, midlife crisis is a period of dramatic self-questioning, as a result of sensing the passing of youth and realization of the imminence of old age and mortality.

I do not think that one has to go through the symptoms of the followings as described by Wikipedia to be considered having midlife crisis:

Abuse of alcohol
Conspicuous consumption
Depression
Blaming themselves or their spouses for their failures
Paying special attention to physical appearance
Entering relationship with younger people

I believe that the above symptoms are the results of failing in dealing with midlife crisis.

Again, I believe that majority of people go through midlife crisis. Those who are successful at it will become wise. They attain wisdom after a period of dramatic self-questioning. Those who fail experience the above symptoms.

I started my serious self-questioning about two years ago. Now, I am very close to getting over the midlife crisis and have not had any of the above symptoms. Wow!

I am happy

I have read somewhere that the opposite of happiness is not sadness, it is anxiety.

I would like to add that the opposite of anxiety is not happiness, it is serenity.

The opposite of sadness is not happiness, it is joyfulness.

Happiness to me is a whole lot of things. I am happy when I am not starving. I am happy to be warm when it is cold out. I am happy to have leisure time. I am happy to appreciate beauty in nature. I am happy to be in good health. I am happy to go out for a walk along the river whenever weather permits. I am happy to feel secure financially. I am happy to escape a few months of winter every year. I am happy to have a great partner. I am happy to be alive.

Right now at this very moment, it is the sunshine streaming through the big window into the kitchen where I am sitting that makes me extremely happy.

Update on air tickets

Update on the post from last Friday November 6, 2009:

Unfortunately, the route and airline of our ticket to the East have been altered. Reason? Air Canada would not give Air China the connection flights from Montreal to San Francisco. One way to beat competition, I guess that’s what Air Canada thinks. But it is a lose-lose situation. We did not buy Air Canada tickets. Instead we will be flying United Airline from Montreal - Chicago - San Francisco – Hong Kong.

Excited on trip next January

We bought our air tickets to Sanya, China today for our usual trip from January to March. The tickets are not only cheaper, but will get us directly to Sanya. We used to have to fly to Hong Kong first. Once we were in Hong Kong, it was up to us how we went from Hong Kong to Sanya, as all North American airlines would only get us to three major cities in China, namely Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Next January, however, we will be flying Air China. We are familiar with Air China and other Chinese airlines since we have been flying around inside China with them every year. Besides having delays (which probably are more airport infrastructure problems than airline problems), the services they provide are way better as compared to the airlines in North America. So we are very excited that we will be treated as human beings rather than worrying about being yelled at. Check out this article. Unfortunately what is described by Tim Ferriss happens way too often.

At least for us flying to Asia, we now have new players. Hopefully this will wake up the airlines in North America.