A fellow on a list once asked for advice on how to become happy and content while he lived in a small apartment located in the center of congested, expensive, stressful and unhealthy city. He wanted to divorce himself from the notion that happiness should coincide with his living conditions. I agreed with him that we can work on being happy and content wherever we live irrespective of our surroundings. But I also had to say that our surroundings can and do have an impact on us and we are not machines that can turn off stress and problems that stem from our unhealthy living conditions and be immune to it all.
Yes, we can work on being at peace even if someone is constantly stabbing a knife in our side, but such a practice takes all our energy. This is why many a contemplative become a ‘renunciate’ and live like monks or nuns. They ‘try’ to remove much of life’s worldly irritants and distractions to focus on the spiritual path, so yes our surroundings and lifestyle can matter to living a serene life. Although some renunciates find that this life is not all it is cracked up to be and they still must deal with ‘personalities’’ unless they become a hermit.
I lived in L.A. for my first 35 years and them decided to relocate with my family to a more affordable and safer local in 1989. The area we moved to is the NE US. It is nothing flashy like L.A. or NY, but a very relaxing area with clean air, low traffic and stress and much wildlife such as deer, squirrels, wild turkeys and honking geese. I enjoy relaxing on my hammock listening to owls hoot and woodpeckers rat-a-tat-tat as I rock back and forth. Lots to do here if your into nature - fishing, hunting, hiking, water and snow sports, etc. I live with doctors, lawyers, successful business people in a really nice area of town. The driving is generally uncongested and low key but occasionally you get the hot head driver just like anyplace else - but back in L.A., the peaceful driver was the exception and the hot head honker was the rule.
Many a time as soon as the traffic light would change he or she was on the horn with one hand as the other hand was used for the cell phone or the Latte’ and even with both hands tied up they would manage to get the middle finger waving at you as they passed by. I live within my means quite comfortably now. But, living within my means was always an option irrespective of where I lived. The choice was always mine, I just refused to do it in my prior life. We have been paying down our house note and owe about $52,000 which is very affordable and do not have to debt to live. If my current 2400 square foot, newish house was transplanted to my old town of L.A. with the same type of neighborhood, same size lot, it would sell for $2,000,000 or more - yet we only paid about 9% of that in our area.
If I took the proceeds from the sale of our current house and decided to buy a house in L.A., I could possibly buy a small house in Watts or Compton. But from what I hear with house prices, I would not even be able to afford one of these. We could probably afford to rent a 1 or 2 bedroom apartment, in a poor area of town, but that is it. I couldn’t live the lifestyle I enjoy today if I moved back to L.A. Where I live compared to L.A. is quite different and they both have their pros and cons. But it is good to be aware of the economic differences as well as the differences in living standards and not blame oneself if you choose to live in a tough area like L.A., NY, Tokyo or similar high expense cities and have trouble making ends meet. If you choose to live in such cities, then accept you will not have a high living standard unless you make tons of money and are an exceptional earner.
Me, I am not an exceptional earner and accept this.
I once read how people living in Santa Barbara ‘find their joy’ in just being able to live there. And do not get much joy from exceptional homes, where a million dollars buys you next to nothing and impressive homes are only for the very wealthy. So, if you choose to live in a tough city and have trouble affording it, find your joy with ‘just’ being able to live there. If I moved back to L.A. and tried to reproduce my life through ‘forcing things’ I would surely run into debt and eventually lose it all anyway since my lifestyle would be artificial and not sustainable.
If I didn’t have this theory of ‘accepting and living within my comfortable earning ability’ on my side, I would call myself a failure and an underearner for not earning the many hundreds of thousand of dollars needed to reproduce and maintain the lifestyle I am enjoying today. One should not beat oneself for not being able to live comfortably in every environment under the sun. If we had no limits we would not be humans…we would be gods. We all have limits, we all come under natural law and are bound by certain capabilities. And the successful person is one that accepts these limits and works to live comfortably within them and does not get confused by enslaving themselves to ‘others’ limits.