For most of us the ultimate job would be to collect a huge salary for doing something fun. My penultimate idea of the ideal job would be surfing. No, not competing, that’s hard work. I just mean just soul surfing at say, Launiopoko Beach Park in Maui every time the urge hit. A woman would stop by my two-story beachfront hut and hand me a million dollars each month. That would be the ultimate job and no, it doesn’t exist.

But an acceptable, close to perfect job does exist for me and for you though you may need to accept a lower income for a while (or forever). See the “How little do you need?” series if you’re having trouble coming to grips with that concept.

Straight out of college or high school and looking for work most of look for a job working for someone else’s company. It’s safe. Sometimes it’s too safe, the money is good enough and complacency kicks in. A person in this situation might stay in that same job until they retire in 40 years. Others will get bored and try another job probably again working for someone else.

We go after everything we want – the best of everything in so many areas, but not our jobs where we spend eight to ten hours a day doing something we probably don’t want to be doing if we had a choice. We DO have a choice, but we continue on mindlessly accepting it.

WHY is that?

In one word, fear. Fear of the difficult path. Fear of not making enough money. Fear of trying to get the job you’d love and being rejected over and over or facing ‘insurmountable’ difficulty trying.

Everyone knows what their ultimate job is. We’ve all spent time thinking about it. But most of us haven’t taken even one step toward it. Usually our self-talk is that there are so few people doing it in the world or we’d need to take a profound pay cut. Maybe your idea of the ultimate job is skydiving out of planes and filming a team doing aerial stunts. Not many people in the world are making that happen for themselves. But I know one thing, YOU could be one of them.

The world is a big place I’ve been finding out the last 10 years. Even if you exhaust your efforts to find the perfect job in the USA you could go abroad and try there. I think the USA provides opportunities for anyone that is motivated to get their ultimate job. If none exist, you can make the opportunity yourself. A driven person can do anything. Look at this guy who strapped jet engines to his back and flew around in circles at almost 200 mph. Since being in Thailand I’ve met other full time bloggers and two guys that had fishing guide businesses in Alaska. Their ‘job’ was to take tourists fishing in some of the most pristine natural streams and lakes in the world. How strange is that to meet two different guys doing that across the planet in Thailand? There must be more of those opportunities than I ever would have thought.

Over time my idea of the ultimate job changed a lot. Currently my idea of the ultimate job is what I’m doing. You’re reading it. Blogging is my ultimate job and I’m making it work. I’ve written in a journal since grad school and I never stopped writing fiction, e-books and long articles for web sites I’ve had. I decided about a year ago to focus on blogging full time and that would be it. This is my ultimate job but I’ve sacrificed a lot to make it work… for instance, I’m not living in Hawaii where the cost of living is outrageous, I’m living in Thailand where my electric bill was $3 this month and water bill was $4.50. Rent was $100. Food was about $100 this month. Gas? I have a motorbike so, at $5 a gallon gas was just about $40. Will I ever make enough money blogging to move from Thailand back to Hawaii? I don’t know. Does it matter? No, not really. If I can just continue to write articles and survive – that’s what I’m doing. I’m happy as a turtle in mud.

Some Ultimate Jobs:

Blogging about anything you love.
Fishing guide, anywhere.
Hiking guide, Maui, Oahu, Kauai, Fiji, Samoa, Tahiti, Western USA, Alaska, Canada, Swiss Alps, Thailand.
Test driver for new sport super-cars.
Dressing room attendant for Charlie’s Angels movie set.
Travel photographer.
Travel writer.
Actor, Actress. Seriously – this must be the best job in the entire world. Nobody on the planet gets paid more for doing less.
Movie extra that acts only as the recipient of massages.
Professional sports player (any sport).
Astronaut.
Artist of any sort.
Comic strip writer.
Joke writer.

If income was the only area you had to sacrifice to be doing what you really want to be doing, could you make it work?

Best of Life!

Vern

Most of us define our lives in terms of the minimum that we need to be “happy”. Happiness then becomes elusive until we have met these minimum goals… and you know what?

When you HAVE the minimums, you’re not happy. You KNOW you’re not happy when you have what you want. That’s the state of the American mind. Once we have it – we want more. The NEXT level. Getting to the basic “I’m happy” level never really keeps us happy because our minds revise the levels so we’re cheated out of feeling any REAL satisfaction from making it when we eventually do.

Either that, or, in typical American fashion – we set our minimum levels for happiness so HIGH that they are completely unattainable and might only happen if we combine our hard work with luck. Well, luck happens sometimes and doesn’t happen other times. Even if luck happens 50-50 that’s a hell of a state to live life in… a 50% chance you’ll find happiness someday.

Why not ask yourself a different question. If you’re a fan of Tony Robbins or some other positive, progressively minded thinker you might have heard him or her say…

“Change the question. Questions empower you to find the right answers and make the right decisions, and later creating the right actions….”

The happiness that you think you crave, that you think exists in the state of things you live in may be found more easily if you change the question.

Instead of asking what the minimums you need are… ask,

“How little do I actually NEED?”

These questions might appear the same to you, but in my mind they’re different. I’m asking how little you can survive on… how little do you actually NEED to live life in a happy state. One in which you aren’t concerned about the basic ‘necessities’ like food, shelter, clothing, and such.

Question how little you really need.

If you know anything about me, I’ve lived in Thailand for the last almost 3 years. In 30 days it will have been 3 years here. Prior to this I’ve lived in the USA and did quite a lot. I met many of my goals, financial and otherwise. I was pretty close to living what some term the “American Dream”. But, I decided upon almost getting there – THIS IS NUTS! I’m done with this crazy lifestyle. TIME is what’s important to me. TIME to create, time to walk around with my head in the clouds. Time to hike for 5 hours if I want to. Time to read a book if I want to. Time to create a web site or write a book or make a funny video. I need TIME.

In America time is NOT easy to come by. Twenty Four hour days feel like 5 hour days. There is no way I could fit everything I wanted into a 24 hour day. I needed to because that’s what “happiness” meant to me then. I needed to make a lot of money. I needed to have a nice place to live. A nice car. A nice kayak. A nice stereo, camera, camcorder, notebook and desktop computers… etc. You know, all of it – the DREAM remember?

But, I wanted TIME to do all the other things that were essential in my mind. Creating things takes time. I needed that time.

I skipped off to Thailand and instantly cleared my schedule. No more time worries. Nobody called me. Nobody sent me mail. I had no appointments. I had 24 hours that I didn’t know what to DO with.

I began to create web sites, write books, and create videos and other digital content. I became a one-man production house. Currently I have over 12 blogs, 3 web sites, 4 e-books, 12000 digital photos of Thailand, 700 digital photos placed with 2 different stock agencies, 127000 words of a bio written, over 300 short movie clips of Thailand, and a host of MP3 podcasts that have yet to find their way online. I’ve gone poisonous snake and scorpion hunting and I’ve been re-focusing on fitness a lot lately. I’ve had 3 years to really slow down, reverse and restart a lifestyle that was completely different from what I knew in the USA.

Here’s a movie clip – I made without editing or really without the thought that I’d put it online here. It was going to maybe be for my mom’s birthday so she could see what I’m living with (or without) here in Thailand. It might be good for you to see too.

Vern lives here, could YOU?

So, picture someone almost living the dream… and then see the reality of what I live like now. This is a video of the place I live… I love it. It’s simple, I have nothing to worry about. I have no air conditioning, fan, stereo, television, hot water, washer, dryer, oven, microwave, or furniture. I have 2 mats that my girlfriend (Thais’ call her my wife since we slept together, and I’m fine with that) and I sleep on. We have no sink for dishes… hmmm what else don’t we have? You can watch the video and compare with your home. Oh – no car. No home phone. I’m sure there’s so much more but I’m having trouble picturing what I had before in the USA.

Living bare bones. It’s not pathetic, it’s how most Thai people live. There are something like 65 million Thai people here in Thailand. Admittedly most Thais’ do have a TV and at least some kind of table or something. I think we’re fine without those things though. We do have this notebook computer that we watch videos on sometimes. In fact, we just rented 3 videos for 50 baht ($1.66) usd at the VDO store. Good for 5 days before we need to bring them back.

So – watch the video and think for a second what it would be like to live in a place like us.

Could you do it?

Sure you could… What is holding you back? Just your mind. Just what your mind thinks you “need”.

Lessen the stress of living in the USA. You don’t NEED. You W-A-N-T.

Lose the want or you’re not ever going to be happy for long! America fuels the want… you’re immersed in a culture that is simmering you in the boiling water of want. That boiling water is American society… it’s boiling because the advertising mega-companies with gazillions of dollars to spend on tweaking your psyche and making you even more competitive, more driven to surpass your neighbor… are learning really well how to keep the temperature up! Society is well-past boiling right now… but, since the pot is under pressure, the temperature can rise higher.

You’re like COOKING LOBSTERS! Jump out of the pot!

You dont’ need to move to Thailand to escape the boiling pot and kill the want. Just start living according to needs, not wants. Make time, it’s there.

If you need to quit your job – quit! If you need to move in with your mom, dad, gramps or sister – see about doing that. Do you really need a $200,000 home? I went from a $200,000 home with Lexus RX300 and the other things I mentioned to this simple place I’m paying $99 USD per month to rent. I’m MUCH happier than I was before. I don’t have a table to sit at – but my back has become strong sitting on the floor. The body compensates for the mind… now the mind is comfy and the body has acclimated. See, no stress.

Asians have this incredible life philosophy – and you’ll see them doing in the USA too. They will move back in with their families (or never leave), so they can all share the expenses of having 1 house. Not every kid needs their own house! It’s one way to free up some time and money, and keep your family close if you can do it too.

There are so many things you can do to change your present situation.

:)

I’ll make this a small series as I have some other areas I want to talk about as far as “How Little do you NEED?”

Best of Life!

Other articles in the “How Little do you NEED?” series…

Your Home >

Your Vehicle >

Your Possessions >

An article I found that also relates to finding happiness with things other than money,

How to live a life of contentment, from Zenhabits.net >

An article from The Simple Dollar about how to save money – 8 Tips from an Ultra Frugal Parent >