I ran across this article. Let’s see how I am doing on the happiness-investment meter:
- Connection to other people, through relationships and/or community.
- Free time to enjoy life (long hours spent working and commuting being a major source of stress and unhappiness).
- Exploring yourself or building your skills and strengths.
- Good health.
- Financial sanity (i.e. getting out of debt and planning for the future).
- Fun.
Connection to other people
- Currently: very isolated – little connection aside from phone or email.
- Post-August: surrounded by family.
Assessment: sucks now, but will improve.
Free time to enjoy life
- Currently: none – work all the time.
- Post-August: unsure. will need to continue to seek freelance work, but must stop working at night.
Assessment: sucks now, but likely to improve. I will have to monitor this, since it would be easy to slide.
Exploring / building skills and strengths
- Currently: everything I learn has to do with job skills, and I haven’t actively sought new skills in a long time.
- Post-August: will be working on the house, which will force me to learn new skills.
Assessment: sucks now, but will improve as a by-product of house repair. It is important, though, that I broaden my interests beyond what is just required (house repairs, PHP skills), and learn things that interest me (new language, gardening).
Good health
- Currently: are you kidding?
- Post-August: screw post-August. Even if I use my job now as an excuse, I must at least start working out June 30. Start as you mean to continue.
Assessment: laziness, overwork and stress have taken over my life. Two of these things have just changed, so it’s my responsibility to take laziness out behind the shed and put a bullet through its head.
Financial sanity
- Currently: had reached financial comfort level.
- Post-August: holy batcave, this scares me.
Assessment: we will use my severance to pay off some outstanding credit cards. We will have fewer opportunities to eat out/spend money. My husband will have a better chance to pursue skills with a more steady income. It is possible we can pay off the house entirely. My income will be difficult (probably impossible) to replace, but reducing expenses should compensate. This is the reason for this blog!
Fun
- Currently: none.
- Post-August: still need to work on it.
Assessment: bluntly – I don’t know what I find fun. I do not know what to expand. Hmm.
