The title of this blog post, Increase Satisfaction: Reduce Stress, is getting close to the core value at the bottom of the postconsumers’ mission. After all, postconsumers really wants its adopters to lead happy, healthy lives. It’s nearly impossible to lead a happy, healthy life if you’re stressed most of the time!
What are the primary causes of stress in your life? Chances are very high that they either have to do with money (most likely feeling like you need more of it!) or with “stuff” (having enough stuff, having the coolest stuff and having stuff that your neighbors will be envious of). Now, flip that and think about this: What are the primary causes of satisfaction in your life? We’re going to take an educated guess and say that you had to think longer and harder to list what leaves you feeling satisfied in life, and you honestly may not have liked the answer that you ended up giving.
That’s a concerning imbalance, don’t you think? You can name the things that stress you out, but you’ll probably struggle with the things that satisfy you! What’s the only way to help correct this imbalance? Well, we think the first and most important step is to start to identify things that make you feel satisfied and then increase the time and priority you give them in your life. Once you begin to do that, you’ll start to find that many of the key things that stress you out (even if those things aren’t related to money or consumerism) seem less important. And as those things begin to seem less important, you’ll find yourself giving them not only less priority but also less time. If your available time were a pie chart, you’ll see the part of the pie that’s dedicated to earning money and turning those earnings into goods shrinking and the part of the pie that’s dedicated to things that actually make you feel happy, complete and satisfied growing.
We’re not saying that you’ll never need to work or make a rent or mortgage payment again, but we are saying that you’ll learn ways to keep those needs in perspective. Then end result? It’s just math! Increase satisfaction: Reduce stress.
