No matter how hard I work to make money, why can’t I live a good life?

Exploring how to find happiness amid economic fluctuations, this article provides profound insights into strategic thinking and life planning, and addresses issues of personal life direction and pursuit of happiness. It is recommended for readers facing career and life choices.

Today we will not talk about business and thinking, but only share some life insights. If you don’t like it, you can swipe away first.

Recently, a friend sent me a private message asking me if I was laid off due to the bad economy, should I stay in the first-tier city or go back to my hometown? I thought about it carefully and found that this question is not simple. You must have heard of the concept of life planning. Many people only plan the next step, or think about the next 5-10 years, but they still lack strategic thinking. It's like you are lost in the sea. If you only focus on sailing to the next island where you can get supplies, it is very likely that you will get farther and farther away from the real mainland.

This question has been discussed many times. In fact, the question is not as simple as which city to go to next. What should be considered is what will happen in the next city? What kind of life will make you feel satisfied? There are many aspects behind this, including work, retirement, financial freedom, struggle, layoffs, etc., and everyone's situation seems to be different.

If you understand strategic thinking, you will know that any strategic existence needs to serve a big goal. For the big project of life, the goal may be "making enough money", "raising an excellent child", "having more power", "achieving higher fame" and so on.

But we all know that a good goal should be unique , and it is difficult to separate material goals such as money/power/fame. If the goal is to have an excellent child, don’t you need enough money? This complicates the problem again. So I think the only ultimate goal of life should be happiness . The above city selection question is transformed into - how to get the greatest happiness in an era of great uncertainty.

If we regard life as a simple arithmetic problem, with maximizing happiness as the goal, and since the length of life is basically fixed, we only need to consider two variables: the first is direction, that is, "what is happiness"; the second is speed, that is, "in order to achieve happiness, how to minimize the waste of process resources."

1. The courage to accept challenges and the ability to calmly refuse

You often hear people say "As long as I XXX, I can XXX", which is a common linear thinking in success studies, as if life will be complete as long as a certain condition or a certain moment is reached. I don't object to defining success in this way, but a successful person is not necessarily happy .

There was an American tycoon who worked hard all his life and owned a huge company and a private hospital. When he was dying in a luxurious ward of his own hospital, his children and grandchildren took turns to take care of him, but there was no real warmth. Even at the moment of his death, his grandson was still beside him replying to emails and preparing for meetings on the computer, and he didn't even know that he had passed away.

We often see billionaires in movies and TV shows who neglect their families and friends because they are too focused on their careers. Why does this kind of bridge last so long? The best movie and TV plots can reflect reality. Everyone can see the shadow of their own life in the plot, which makes it easier to empathize. This proves that many people in life do regard career success as the ultimate goal of life but are not happy.

To deconstruct this problem, we can use Maslow's pyramid of needs. According to conventional understanding, people's driving force is to constantly climb this pyramid, and only when one level is satisfied can one climb to the next level. In fact, this is a huge misunderstanding. Because this cannot explain why some rich people have consolidated the bottom but have not reached the upper level. And some poor people have not consolidated the bottom but have touched the top of the pyramid.

For example, Nepalese are one of the happiest people in the world, but they are relatively poor. So this pyramid is not meant to be climbed. We should keep in mind all the needs of these five levels at every stage of our lives and not selectively ignore some of them .

In fact, when Maslow first proposed this model, his definition of "self-realization" was not to become a big shot, but to do things that match your abilities, to be brave enough to accept challenges and to refuse tasks that are beyond your ability, so as to live a life that you can live . Different people's abilities and situations lead to different achievements, but it does not affect self-realization.

How to act in life? Mr. Fu Lei also gave his children four practical tips for improving happiness: Choose the right partner and start to act to feel spiritual happiness. Don't always think about the past, and don't imagine disasters that haven't happened yet;

2. Financial freedom requires long-term planning

You may ask what is the relationship between money and happiness? Do we have to choose one or the other? Of course not. We can achieve a balance between "financial freedom" and "happy life".

The main problem for many people with "financial freedom" is that they feel it is out of reach. After all, calculating the amount of money needed for the rest of your life is difficult and daunting. It's like when you were a kid and saw a complex math problem, you felt it was too difficult when you had no idea what to do. This requires careful analysis. When you really calm down and think about it, you will find that it is not as complicated as you imagined. Here I introduce two more useful ideas.

1. The 4% Rule

Imagine that you could live comfortably in retirement by withdrawing 4% in cash from your portfolio each year, without depleting your assets before you die.

For example, if you imagine that you will need to spend 200,000 yuan per year after retirement, then the investment portfolio you need to build before retirement is 200,000 yuan/0.04=5 million yuan. As long as you can earn enough for a 5 million yuan investment portfolio, you can achieve financial freedom. So your work goal becomes to accumulate this 5 million yuan before retirement, rather than blindly pursuing more money so that you have more space to enjoy life.

2. “Pay your future self a salary every month”

Deposit 10% of your income into a separate account every month, and use the remaining 90% to pay for other expenses. You will find that there is actually no difference between using 90% of your income to live and using 100%. The sooner you do this, the better.

Assuming you start saving 2,000 yuan a month at the age of 25 into an investment portfolio with an annual interest rate of 3%, and save for a total of 35 years until you are 60, the result is that this part of your savings can bring you about 1.5 million assets when you retire. According to the above 4% rule, you can withdraw 60,000 yuan every year as expenses. So the key is not to invest enough money each time, but that the time in your compound interest formula needs to be long enough.

By saving in separate accounts, we can live a life with high happiness without sacrificing our current quality of life for financial freedom.

3. Minimize process resource waste

1. At the end of life, what matters most to us is the experiences and memories of a lifetime, not the numbers in the bank account.

Lao Chen is a middle-aged cancer patient whose condition is rapidly deteriorating. When he lies on his deathbed, he does not think of luxury cars, mansions and huge income, but tells the hospice nurse about his experience of climbing Mount Everest. When he reached the top of the mountain, he felt the extreme joy of his muscles trembling with excitement.

As human beings, we need desire and adventure. It is not advisable to sacrifice enjoyment just to achieve wealth and freedom as soon as possible. Using wealth to exchange for enjoyment and memories is actually an important way to minimize the waste of resources.

2. Spending money also requires path planning at different stages of life

For example, at the age of 20, it is appropriate to save money by buying an early morning train and sleeping on a bench at the station for a night, just to travel to more places. Youth should explore the world in various difficult environments. When you reach middle age with elderly parents and children, you will naturally arrange more comfortable travel and accommodation for your family, and spend time on socializing with people for your career. Then, as your experience and happiness accumulate, you will find what you really like to do.

Therefore, in addition to the old-age savings account, we should also have a pleasure account at any time to get the fun that suits our life stage at the right time. From the self-centered "seeing oneself" in childhood, to the "seeing the world" in youth exploring the world, to the "seeing all living beings" in middle-aged interpersonal communication, and finally understanding the source of one's inner happiness and returning to "seeing oneself". At this point, you will find the source of the ultimate happiness of human beings, the intersection of "seeing oneself" in Eastern philosophy and "self-realization" in Western philosophy.

IV. Conclusion

To sum up, should you stay in a first-tier city or go back to your hometown? This question should actually be asked where you feel happier. If your income in a first-tier city does not affect your normal life after deducting the savings account and the entertainment account mentioned above, then stay in a first-tier city. Otherwise, go back to your hometown. The most important thing is to accumulate a sense of happiness.

With happiness as your ultimate goal, you can:

• From now on, save 10% of your income every month for your future self
• Earn enough investment to generate a 4% return based on your annual retirement expenses
• Set up a pleasure account to get wonderful experiences at any time that suits your life stage

Author: Mr. He Source public account: Mr. He (ID: 699024)