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Quality of Life
Once, I had everything and no dreams left. Earlier, I had almost nothing, yet life was full of creation.
Do you believe that standard of living and quality of life are unrelated?
From 2006 to 2010, my life was extremely comfortable: I owned two apartments and a new SUV. Holiday, party, holiday... Maintaining that level was easy because I had worked my way into a comfortable position.
My standard of living was SUPER. But my quality of life was poor. The fire in my eyes had gone out; I merely existed from one day to the next. I no longer dreamed.
From 2001 to 2005, it was the opposite. I sometimes worked 16-hour days and even as I went to sleep, I dreamed about new software I could build. Yet my standard of LIVING barely existed: I saved 70 per cent of my income for an apartment deposit. “Two sausages again?” the cheerful woman at the Prisma meat counter asked on almost every visit. In the evening, I fried them beside frozen chips. And I enjoyed all of it! 😃 Even though I saved every cent.
Then I gradually improved my circumstances and raised my standard of living until, one day, I had everything and the goals were complete. I remember a conversation with Silver in 2010 when I wondered aloud: how could I have been so happy when I had nothing, yet feel so empty now that I had everything?
A few months later, I understood that happiness for me was not consumption but creation. Happiness did not come from reaching the destination, but from the journey. No fine restaurant could make me enjoy the food if I had no appetite for LIFE. No new relationship could place in my eyes the fire that appeared when I dreamed about new applications and built them.
Some people called my decision at the beginning of 2011 a “brave step”: I hired a programmer and put all my money, my car and additional borrowed money into it. But if they had known how much I received in return — how I once again went to sleep dreaming of the next day and how life was full of enthusiasm again.
“Sacrifice is giving up something good for something better.” My standard of LIVING was almost back where it had been ten years earlier: I worked all day and did not use my income to increase consumption. But my quality of life was superb. At that point, I could afford only public transport, yet I stood there with the most contented smile in the world.
I hope that this time I never “arrive” and never complete every goal for good. I hope the journey remains endless and full of challenges that bring out the best in me. After overcoming each new obstacle, I want to straighten my back and say: bring it on!
The thought is captured well in a line attributed to Michelangelo: “The greatest danger is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.”