Possesions: Do you possess them, or do they possess you?

Life. It's meant to be enjoyed.

I find inspiration in the posts that Cinzia and her sister make over at Stile Mediterraneo. However, I had long been aspiring towards the "Mediterranean" style of life even before I was aware of their site. Only to me, growing up as an American, it was known less as the "Mediterranean" lifestyle and more of simply an idyllic way of life that I had no title for, but simply aspired towards.

There is has been raging debate going on over at the Freelance Writing Gigs website for the past week or so that is directly related to working smarter, not harder, and how to determine what your rates should be as a freelance writer. I think the debate is rather silly, because the driving factor behind the vast majority of writers is not their self worth, but the illusion of self worth directly related to their addiction to consumption and letting their possessions control their lifestyles.

"Anything you cannot relinquish when it has outlived its usefulness possesses you, and in this materialistic age a great many of us are possessed by our possessions." - Mildred Lisette Norman

This is the crux of the issue. There are a great many people who have devolved to the point that they no longer enjoy life simply because it is worth living; rather, they enjoy life only so long as they are able to have all of the gadgets, expensive cars, SUVs, wide-screen TVs, dinner's out, and so on and so forth. And it is this addiction to possessions, this addiction to consumption, that drives the debate as to what is an acceptable rate.

But how does rate of pay have anything to do with working smarter, not harder, or your standard of living?

Simply this: if you eliminate the addiction to consumption, the addiction to un-necessary possessions, and the addiction to all of the useless "things" which make up your life, you eliminate a vast majority of the things which were forcing you to work so hard in the first place.

Now, I'm not saying you can't have the finer things in life, or enjoy modern amenities. What I am getting at is too many people associate "success" (rate of pay/amount you make per year) with working "smart". They couldn't be further from the truth.

Working smart is done by eliminating those things which force you into a situation where you no longer are able to enjoy life, but are simply a slave to the wage. Everyone has to make a living, yes, but what is the cost?

The recent post Cinzia made regarding the siesta really brought it home for me. I may not live in the Mediterranean region (a few hours away, sadly), but my wife and I were having this very discussion last night because we feel that we very much subscribe to the Mediterranean way of life. We talked about how it's not important to us to make millions of dollars. We would rather spend time with friends, family, and enjoy life and the experience rather than being slaves to the clock, to the hourly wage, to the 40 hour a week work week with only 1 paid week's vacation every year. We were talking about how her mother is one of those individuals who is addicted to "worth". All she ever talks about is work. Period. There is no simple enjoyment of life. She never just goes to the park and enjoys the simple beauty of the flowers, the smell of the blooms, the comfort of the shade on a hot summer's day. Her world is a world of numbers, of business contracts, of whether or not the company is making a profit. (which it is; they recently opened their 16th store and the company is worth over 16 million Euro at present) And the writers I see over at the Freelance Writing Gig website are the same. They are consumed with an addiction to possess, to such a degree that they are unable to enjoy life unless they are working for X dollars per hour/article/whatever, just in order to make ends meet.

In recent months my wife and I have had people suggest that we are lazy. Her mother, for one, and several other writers I deal with at various community sites. I have seen people criticize the Mediterranean lifestyle because "those types of people never accomplish anything with their lives".

It is those kinds of statements which show me that the person behind the statement is addicted to consumption. Their possessions are possessing them. Their sole existence is based purely upon a need to have the next new shiny, to make X dollars per hour, to make more than their peers, to always make another dollar or another hundred dollars, just so they can say "look at me!"

How is simple enjoyment of life lazy? How can it be, when people like myself and others still enjoy all the modern amenities that the 21st century have to offer, but simply chose to work half the hours and spend the rest of our time enjoying friends, family, atmosphere, travel, LIFE?

Why is it lazy to have a siesta in the afternoon? Why is it lazy to go home, have a long, relaxing lunch with your friends and family? Why is it lazy to walk instead of drive a 60 thousand dollar SUV? Why is it lazy to aspire towards working only 4-5 hours a day rather than 8-10?

I would argue that it is not lazy, it is simply being smart, and working smarter, not harder. The Mediterranean lifestyle is about enjoying life. Taking pleasure in the simple things like friends, family, food, relaxation.

There was a recent post made by a writer (whose name I won't mention here) over at the aforementioned site where she said that "I'm sorry, but working for less than 30k a year just doesn't cut it for me. If I can't make at least 65k a year, then I'm doing something wrong, and there is no way in hell I would ever work for so little because I am worth far more than 30k a year".

The statement attached a self-worth to her identity. But where did she derive at the 65k mark? How did she determine that is what she was "worth" per year? The determining factor is her possessions. She cannot survive for less than 65k USD a year because she has placed herself in a position where the only way she can get by, year after year, is if she makes 65k. If she makes any less than that she can't afford the house she lives in, the car she drives, the Blackberry and the iPhone and the iPod and the 50 inch flat-screen plasma TV and the Starbuck's lattes (she admits that she does her work every day at Starbucks) and all of the trinkets and gadgets which make up her daily existence, and without which she would be unable to function.

Note that I don't say unable to live. I say unable to function. She is a person whose possessions have come to possess her, to the point that her self worth is directly related to the value of the possessions which she has surrounded herself with.

Now, understandably, some people's professions revolve around possessions. Some people can't work without a computer. I'm one of those people who can't work without the Internet, so in a way, I am driven by my need for a computer, and an Internet connection. But the difference is that I don't have to do my work at Starbucks. I can do it from home. I don't need a Blackberry and an iPhone to do my job; I get by on a home computer and a cheap little 100 dollar cell phone. I don't need to work a 40 hour a week job because Evy and I chose to move to an environment where we could pay for all of our expenses and costs of living by only working a few hours a day, thus leaving the rest of the day completely open to enjoy the little things in life, like siestas, fine wines, walks in the park, and daily walks around the city.

At the end of the day, take a good, long look at your life. Do you enjoy life to its fullest, or are you a slave to your possessions? Do you enjoy siestas every afternoon, or are you a slave to the 40 hours a week mentality that requires you to be in the office from 9 to 5 every day, with a 30 minute lunch break and a week's paid vacation once a year?

At the end of the day the only person standing between you and success is you. You choose to make your life what it is. If you choose to live in conditions that require you to make 80k a year to make ends meet, then that is your choice, and you have no one to blame but yourself if you are unable to make 80k a year to make ends meet. Your peers have nothing to do with your rates, or your worth. Only you can determine what your "worth" is, and how hard or how smart you decide to work.

Me, I prefer working smarter, not harder. I prefer to enjoy vacations year-round, not just once a year. I prefer taking siestas in the afternoon after a healthy meal with my wife, enjoying a nice bottle of wine before settling into a cozy little nap. I enjoy my possessions, but they do not control me.

I do not suggest that you have to give up the things which define you, or that you have to move overseas to find simplicity in your life. Simply be aware that if you let your possessions define who and what you are that you are no longer in control of your life, but rather are obeying the whims of your obsessions.

Do your possessions control you, or are you in control of your destiny?

The World is Your Oyster: Part Five

Low paying vs. high paying.

Over at one of the community websites I visit there is an ongoing discussion (let's not split hairs. It's a debate, perhaps even an argument) between myself and a select group of writers who look down their noses at writers willing to work for less than them. I'd like to take the opportunity to look at the numbers for a moment, to give people a clearer picture of what really is low and high paying, and the difference between realistic expectations and simple ego.

The average wage for a US citizen or resident is around 40 thousand USD per year. That's on the gross end. If you work that out to an hourly rate it's 21 dollars an hour.

Unskilled workers make less. That is, people who flip burgers at McDonalds, or work the graveyard shift at 7-11, make less than 21 dollars an hour. Skilled workers make more. Carpenters, nurses, IT guys, tech writers, these people make slightly more. Specialized skills, that is jobs which require a specialized degree OR 10+ years experience in the field, make double or more...that is, 40 dollars an hour or greater.

This isn't opinion. It's fact. I'm not going to take the time to link to all of my sources this morning. Suffice to say this comes from research I've done over the past few months working on a couple of specific projects for one of my clients.

So, looking at the statistics, the only people making greater than 40 dollars an hour are specialized skill workers, or people with greater than 10 years in their chosen profession. Those individuals with a Master's degree or their Doctorate are making even more...usually over 100k a year, depending on their position and profession.

So let's observe for a moment. If a freelance writer, regardless of their location in the world, can pick up work from a client and average greater than 21 dollars an hour, they are making more than the average individual. Would you consider this low paying, or high paying? You cannot consider it low paying, because in order to qualify for low paying it would have to be less than the 21 dollars an hour. It's not necessarily high paying, either. Let's call it "standard" rates, because we are working with the law of averages here.

If a writer can make 50 dollars an hour, is he working a low-paying job, or a high paying job? Statistically, he's making more than double what the average person in the US makes. This would be considered a high-paying job, simply based upon factual statistics.

I think ego has a lot to do with it. There are a few writers out there who enjoyed an unprecedented level of success in pre-recession America, when they were riding the tide of America being the only country with high speed Internet available to nearly everyone. Now, 5 years later, wi-fi nooks exist in every corner of the globe, and high-speed Internet is available to most people in most countries. The writers who enjoyed a period of higher-than-average rates during those times were living high on the hog, enjoying a situation that existed simply because the market hadn't expanded. Now that the market exists within the framework of the entire world, these same writers are experiencing job losses because there are other people out there who are willing to do the work for less than the 75 dollars an hour or more that these people charge.

Let's face it...if person A charges 75 dollars an hour to write website content and person B is willing to write the same content for 30 dollars an hour, and they both have the exact same qualifications...a smart employer is going to pick the 30 dollar an hour writer. Why? Because it's a better deal. It's smart business. Suddenly the 30 dollar an hour guy is swimming in work, but the 75 dollar an hour guy is finding his jobs getting fewer and farther between, until eventually, he ends up making less per year than the guy who worked 30 dollars an hour.

Now, sure, the guy who did the work for 30 dollars an hour probably worked more hours to get the same result, but if you have two people who are making relatively the same amount of money per-year...that is, greater than the average US median wage of 40k a year...it has less to do with high-paying vs. low-paying and more to do with simple ego. The writer charging 75 dollars an hour feels it is unfair that the guy doing it for 30 dollars an hour can make the same amount of money per year.

Fair enough, but we still haven't really uncovered why the ego writer feels that anything less than 50 dollars an hour is a "low paying" wage, because according to statistics, it's not. It's more than double the national median, which means by its very definition it is a high paying job.

Ego. That's all it boils down to. Statistically, 50 dollars an hour is an extremely high paying wage... double the national median. Now, maybe the ego writer lives in an area of the nation where their cost of living is more than the average, therefore they need to make more than the average. However, this does not change the fact that 50 dollars an hour is high paying wage. All it changes is the fact that they themselves are not part of the average, and therefore applying labels will result in a skewed viewpoint that has little to do with what is or isn't realistically low paying or high paying. Instead, their results are tainted by personal experiences and ego. They term low paying as anything that cannot support their way of life, which doesn't apply to the average person.

Low paying, high paying, and in between. A lot of writers like to label their work as "per word" or "per hour" or "per article". What does it matter? If an individual can make X amount of dollars per month/year, and it's greater than the average median, it is by its very definition a "high paying" job.

So for those of you freelance writers who worry about whether or not you are working a low paying gig or a high paying gig, look at the end results. Are you going to make roughly 25 dollars an hour for your work based upon the law of averages? Then you are making standard rates. If you are making 40 dollars an hour or more, you are getting high-paying gigs. Anything less than 20 an hour and you are in the low-paying range.

Don't let yourself be misled by egotistical writers. There is a realistic approach to this industry, and it can only be achieved by having a realistic view on how the industry works. Good luck in the job hunt, and I hope to see you on the other side!