6 Happy Time Ideas

Simple timeless pleasure - a free walk

THE.PaST: "Happiness is doing well in school, getting a god job yadda yadda......"
 
THE.PReSeNT: "Happiness is having lots of fun. Party hard, party on......"
 
THE.FuTuRe: "Happiness is having power, status, wealth, a legacy....."
 
CoNTeNDeR: "Fu**ed if I know, but I am not listening to you guys."
10 happiness guidelines was posted earlier in the year which looked at a few topics around the happiness of the mind such as being positive and putting things into perspective. 
Here are a few ideas on actions on how the Tribe i sseeking achievement of personal happiness.
What is personal happiness anyway? 
Whilst it is impossible to define happiness, after all it is a word that means a million different things. We can consider it a key part of our journey through life. We want to enjoy and extend ourselves to live our precious hours on this planet to the max.
There are a few things that can be done to help seeking happiness such as avoiding distractions. Shopping and superfluous entertainment media such as soap operas come to mind. They waste time that could be spent with our friends, family and the great outdoors. Some free personal time allows you to reflect on what is really important to you and how lucky you are for what you have - there is always someone worse off (as for better off that is a matter of opinion).
Most distractions incur a monetary cost and MONEY IS TIME. So avoiding frivolous distractions will reduce / eliminate unneeded spending. Keep your money and your time instead of selling it on the open market to someone else for their benefit.

"It's not a question of enough, pal. It's a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn't lost or made, it's simply transferred from one perception to another." - Gordon Gekko

Time Ideas for a Happy Life

1. Meet your friends and family as much as possible
    
1. A meal, kids running around, bottle of wine and table talk. What a great way to relax, switch off and just go with the flow.
    
2. Building strong relationships, helping out (when asked might I add) and giving are all simple pleasures in life and are free.  Have a look at the posts Community HELP! Part 1 - 10 Amazing Blessings and Early Retirement at 36 - Charity Time?
    
2. Go slow
    
1. Not rushing in the car - what is the point of rshing really if you are going to be two minutes late. What difference does an extra five minutes really make? Besides going too fast, wears tyres and brakes out faster, uses more fuel and is dangerous. Slow down and actually enjoy the journey.
   Avoid traveling is a sane strategy. Avoid the stress of getting ready and packing up stuff to be stuck in a box or a tube to reach somewhere where your routine is completely messed up. The environment is alien and full of nasty bugs and everyone would have had a better time messing about in the back garden.  THE.ConTeNDeRs opinion be happy where you live or perhaps it is time for a move - just avoid long commuting hell.
    
2. Cook at home and eat at a table. Fast food V's Slow food there is no competition here at all. Cooking your own meals is an achievement, most containing local healthy ingredients and saves money too boot.
   Sit down, tell jokes, debate all enjoyable life skills instead of wolfing the food down getting indigestion along the way.
   

   "Lunch is for wimps" - Gordon Gekko
    

3. Try washing the dishes and car by hand and hanging the laundry outside to dry. Simple tasks, time to think, money saving in their low energy consumption and nice fresh smelling sheets along the way mmmmm..
    
3. Appreciate what you already have, and reduce the amount of stuff you buy. Shopping is stressful and exhausting. Too much choice, too much distraction, too many risks to get in debt. Your poor senses are being overwhelmed and manipulated at every turn. If you want to be financial independent, this must be near the top of the to-do list.
    
4. Get in the right mindset.
    
1. Rule number 1: I will not think about work outside of work - use the time for the nice warm fuzzy stuff. Easier said than done from personal experience supporting factories and computersystems that had to be available 24/7. A couple of observations:
   - Is volume of work really going to get you promoted?
   - Is perfection going to achieve all of those massive results and is the pursuit of perfection stressful? Keep focused on the easy wins and the big picture stuff to be noticed and make the boss look good :)
   So turn off the phone. Leave the laptop in the office. At the end of the work week dump all of the stuff to do next week on a piece of paper and then forget about it.
    
2. Rule number 2: Do not put off simple tasks, just do them straight away to avoid unnecessary stress or don't do them at all. Is it really important - YES! JFDI - Just F****** Do It!
    
3. Rule number 3: put things in perspective. Do you really have a problem and is it really worth while getting worked up about? Stress time wasting and putting you in a negative frame of mind. Surely it must be something REALLY important to do that.
   Kids have a wonderful ability to wind you up. Whining, drawing or coloring things they shouldn't and fighting, to name a few preferably at the worst time like in the confines of a car or at a restaurant. Chill out they are kids, they are learning all the time. Instead of blowing your top talk to them, explain and ask questions. Perhaps they will at least learn some communication and listening skills over manners for the time being. Manners will come with time.
    
4. Rule number 4: This leads on nicely to being positive and optimistic. I don't mean wear pink-coloured glasses and believe everything will fall to you on a plate that is just blind faith. The weather is crap - great, get out the chess set. The car has broken down - it will get fixed! I have lost my job - I will get another one - CV time!
   Re-framing and turning a problem on its head is a wonderful skill. Combine that with a realistic plan to sort it out and you have just gone from a negative angry person to hopefully a happy can do person 
   "I will be financially independent in 7.6 years based on a savings rate of 50% and i will have to be very careful with my spending and push for two promotions in work to make it happen."
    
5. Avoid paying tax by earning less- NO NOT ILLEGALLY and not altogether - just what is right. Paying less tax means you have to work less hence have more time.
    
1. Plan around the tax bands to minimise tax payments. Divert earnings into pre tax payments such as pensions (we still want very early financial independence though....  Play around with the figures in the financial timeline planning tool.).
   Time spent on tax planning = less time saving and in work!
    
2. If jumping tax bands makes you worse off why not reduce your hours instead?
    
3. Spend less = less sales tax payments
    
4. Make sure all investments are in a tax free wrapper
    
5. Grow some of your own food / fuel, insulate your house etc.
    
6. Avoid the "always-on" culture.
    
1. Ditch the smart mobile phone for one that just makes phone calls and texts. No more beeping emails, facebook alerts, game distractions etc. Get a pay as you go plan and not the expensive wasteful all in data plans.
    
2. Tablets, all shiny, captivating, portable and fun at first glance. Consumption items. Back to the shopping point above. Tablets are not productive work items - get a laptop that can run a spreadsheet and word processor, avoid the expensive gaming types.
   Ah Games! Distraction and consumption all in one - buy this 'cheap' coin to buy this essential add on and then blow your buddy away through your ultra fast broadband connection. Why all the 'real world' violence in today's games as well. Shooting almost real people must really mess with ones developing mind.
   Sure some games are fun and everything in moderation. Maybe keep to the classics, no gore, cheap to by or free and don't need a really expensive machine to play them on. Most of the old games are multiplayer where you actually collaborate and physically sit next to each other at least.
   
3. Avoid mainstream media such as papers and news websites - unfortunately the real news no longer resides in these. Perhaps have a look at some of the links on the left hand side of this blog.
   Investigative journalism in the MSM is a dying form. It has been replaced by snippets of trivial entertainment news. Distractions, a waste of brain power. Where are the articles on personal happiness through non consumerist tendencies, turning of the tv and actually talking to each other - no money to be made there.
   Instead we are just given drivel such as ketchup is good for sex, my dog ate my car keys, turned off the handbrake and squashed my prize winning geranium plant. Give me a break. Give me my time back!
    
4. Avoid Advertising it generally prizes on your inadequacies "we will make you pretty", "You will look cool in this" alot are related to sex and status aren't they?
    
1. Install Ad-blocking software in your browser - we use the Adblock Plus addon in Mozilla Firefox - free and effective.
    
2. Find your postal exemption list.
    
3. Live somewhere that is not ugly and covered in billboards
    
5. Ditch the idiot box it just spews out morbid news entertainment how is all this negative stuff ever going to make you happy?

What to do with your time?
 
What do you dedicate your time to? What are the long term happy activities? What are the waste of time activities?
Perhaps have some quiet time to sit down and reflect on the past week. What did you do and where did the time go? Is there something that could be dropped / replaced. Is there something that is making you use your precious time on it?
With your free time are you resting enough, lying in bed and re-charging ones batteries. Chatting to friends, doing something you love.
Tick Tock, Tick Tock
Time is of the essence. We if lucky have around 90 years on this amazing planet. Let's use our time wisely.
Lets use our time so future generations can have time to themselves as well instead of catering for our mistakes.
Lets use our time wisely to make the world an even better place for the people around us than it already is. Give us Time.
Peace, prosperity and happiness
THE.CONTENDER
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