Are You Choosing Quality or Quantity in Your Life Right Now?
Life lessons from a naked South African
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Whilst I was resting my weary muscles after the World Championship in Olive picking (we came fourth!) in the hotel sauna this week, one of last year’s competitors walked in. A burly South African guy who swapped the Cape for a tiny town on a Croatian island four years ago.
He was naked except for a towel. I tried not to concentrate on our weirdly intimate encounter and instead asked him about his life in South Africa vs. life on a Croatian island.
His honesty was refreshing. Perhaps it was the nakedness.
He told me that, like many (rich and white) South Africans, he used to live in a large house with maids. He and his wife had pretty much all they needed in terms of stuff - fancy cars, wine, gadgets, the whole shebang. But they were also restricted in terms of freedom. They lived in a compound with security detail and bars on the house windows. They didn’t go out much at night.
When they moved to Croatia, he told me, it was like swapping quantity for quality.
Gone was all the quantity of stuff, of rooms in the house, of wine in the wine fridge.
All swapped for quality. Quality of lifestyle, quality of interactions, quality of the everyday.
Nowadays both he and his wife can walk the streets any time of day or night. They can sleep with their windows open or doors unlocked. They have slowed down, they take their time over their daily routines. They have the time and space to breathe.
Would he return to South Africa long-term, I asked him?
Not on your nelly.
The whole interaction got me thinking about how often we focus on quantity, not quality. This is how the world works, no? More, more, more, busy, busy, busy.
Quality? Not so much.
***
I ponder a lot about why quality has taken a back seat in our lives. My first thought is when it comes to products, quality has become synonymous with expensive.
When we think of quality products we think of items with a hefty price tag for the sake of better standards. $200 headphones that give crisp, clear sound for instance or $7 specialty coffee packed with flavor. Quality may offer good value, but that doesn’t always matter. We can’t always afford it.
Stagnant wages, high inflation and living costs all contribute to a society that is relatively far, far less well off than 20 years prior. So we eschew quality for cheap but affordable.
But that doesn’t account for why we buy so many cheap goods. The average household owns 300,000 items. My guess is that someone who says they can’t afford a high-quality $200 dress can open their closet and pull out 5 x $40 ones (I include myself in this).
So our aversion to quality isn’t just about money it’s also about psychology. After all, parting with $20 ten times is much easier than parting with $200 in one go. And whether we can afford it or not isn’t part of the equation either - the 15 trillion dollars of consumer debt in America can attest to that.
We’re wired for instant gratification and marketers know this so they get us chasing after quantity. And even though we know that the cheap item is going to break quicker than it should, or not work as well as its quality counterpart, we continue to part with our cash for it for the sake of choice and “saving” money.
Except we all know deep down that this isn’t the way we should live our lives. We should focus on saving up to buy quality goods. The ones that make us feel great every time we see, use, or wear them. The ones that last. The single item that is worth 100 cheaper equivalents.
The same goes for quality vs quantity in every aspect of our lives.
***
Every day we make a choice between quality and quantity. Friendships. Leisure activities. The way we spend our time.
Hands up who chooses quantity over quality more often than they should?
Just think about how many of us choose to spend our time. We busy ourselves every minute of the day, packing in more and more activities and events until our diary looks like a socialite’s.
We feel validated by having large circles of friends and acquaintances. The more the merrier, as the saying goes. But most of us never truly get deep and meaningful with many of them.
It’s easier to choose the quantity. It’s throwaway interactions, it’s quick snippets, it’s never getting into the weeds.
Choosing quality is difficult because being intentional always takes more effort.
Our lives, energy, and time are finite and yet we are all guilty (myself included) of not treating it as such. Thus much like those $40 dresses, we pile on the quantity, disregarding the quality.
It’s What You Do.
***
The naked man got me thinking. Simple living is about choosing quality over quantity.
Does following a simple living path mean you get it right all the time? Absolutely not. Right this minute I can think of at least two big areas of my life where I choose quantity over quality every single time.
But I know that simple living gives me a framework to sort out this imbalance. And I fully intend to sort it out.
You should too.
If you want to get your finances into shape, read on…
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Next week, we start finances, with a couple of changes:
One, the mailout will now be going out on Tuesday.
Two - this is what I wrote to paid subscribers this week:
Instead of a course-style design, I’m going to write a series of essays based on the topic of finance and money in a similar style to these Friday essays.
The topic of finances is so personal to everyone, doling out practical financial advice can be really hard. What works for you might not work for someone else. There is also plenty of advice floating around the internet (and I will be pointing you to it) about how to save, budget, invest, etc, so you probably don’t want to hear the same old advice from me.
I also feel my strength lies in essay-style writing, rather than in practical courses. I’ve written hundreds of essays on personal finance on Medium, many of which have gone viral and helped a lot of people. I want to bring that sort of energy here.
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