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How to Live the Simple Life

August 06, 2008 01:30 PM ET Kimberly Palmer Permanent Link
During a recent interview with Tim Kasser, associate professor of psychology at Knox College and author of The High Price of Materialism, I found myself wanting to ask him questions beyond the scope of our discussion on the connection between materialism and happiness. Specifically, I wanted to get more personal. He ascribes to a lifestyle known as "voluntary simplicity," which essentially means opting for a less materialistic life. Instead of spending the evening in front of a plasma-screen television, a voluntary simplifier might cook a meal with the vegetables he grew in his garden. Instead of splurging on two lattes a day, he might bring his home-brewed beverage of choice to work in a reusable mug.
Because I love the idea of voluntary simplicity but often find myself involuntarily making life complicated, I wanted to ask him: Don't you ever have the urge to go on a shopping spree or crave a material indulgence? Kasser agreed to share his thoughts on those questions and more. Please add your own ideas about voluntary simplicity below—do you like the idea of giving up purchases, or are you doing it already? One commenter will be randomly selected to receive a copy of David E. Shi's The Simple Life.

Excerpts from my discussion with Kasser:
How did you first get interested in the study of materialism and values? When I was a psychology graduate student at the University of Rochester, I was very interested in how people actively create their lives, and so this led me to become interested in people's goals, strivings, and values, for these are partially the means by which we consciously and actively try to "become" a certain kind of person and have a certain kind of life. There are lots of goals and values that people can pursue in life, and initially I was exploring a variety of them. I then sort of stumbled onto the finding that when people were especially focused on goals that pertained to money and possessions and wealth, they were less happy. This really struck me as fascinating, as it is the opposite of what our consumer, capitalistic society tells us. So, I kept studying it and trying to understand materialism better.

Why do you think that is the case, that people who are less materialistic are also more likely to be happier? Our perspective on people's well-being is that it depends in large part on whether or not they have their psychological needs well satisfied.

That is, just like a plant needs to have a certain amount of water, a certain amount of light, and certain nutrients from the soil and air in order to survive and thrive, people have certain psychological needs that must be satisfied if they are to be healthy and thrive.
We propose four psychological needs. The first is safety/security, which is the need to feel like you'll survive, like you are not in danger, like you will have enough food and water and shelter to make it another day. The second is competence or efficacy, which is the need to feel like you are skillful and able to do the things that you set out to do: I need to feel like a good psychologist, you might need to feel like a good journalist, etc. The third is connection or relatedness, which concerns having close, intimate relationships with other people. The fourth need is for freedom or autonomy, which is feeling like you do what you do because you choose it and want to do it rather than feeling compelled or forced to do it.

As I lay out in my book, The High Price of Materialism, people who put a strong focus on materialism in their lives tend to have poor satisfaction of each of these four needs. In part this is because of their development, but it also is because materialism creates a lifestyle that does a poor job of satisfying these needs. That is, a materialistic lifestyle tends to perpetuate feelings of insecurity, to lead people to hinge their competence on pretty fleeting, external sources, to damage relationships, and to distract people from the more fun, more meaningful, and freer ways of living life.

How would you describe your own lifestyle? Where did it come from, your parents? Or is it something you developed later in life? Our lifestyle is something that my wife and I have developed over the last 15 years. We live on 10 acres of land about 8 miles south of the small liberal arts college where I teach and where she works as a psychotherapist. We are vegetarian and have a big garden, a fruit orchard, and several animals for eggs and milk. We both work at reduced loads at the college so we can be at home more for our two sons, and so we can be involved in different community and activist groups. We don't watch television but find plenty of other things to keep us amused and occupied and interested. Neither of us grew up this way, and our lifestyle has really evolved over the years. The way we live has its challenges, but it works for us.

What are your favorite things about it? I guess for me the main thing is that I try to live a balanced life. I like working as a professor and teaching and writing and speaking and the rest, but I also think that there is a lot more to life than work.

So, I like to have time to be with my boys so I can help them build a treehouse this summer or go to their sports events. I like having time to play the piano and draw and read for fun and take vacations. I like following the seasons with what I'm eating, at least to some extent; there is nothing like corn on the cob cooked only 10 minutes after it has been picked.

Do you ever find yourself wanting to buy materialistic things, like an iPhone or $4 latte? Is there a middle ground for people like me who really enjoy certain material things but embrace the goals of voluntary simplicity? There is a story about a man who approached Gandhi and said that he'd been thinking about living a simpler life, but he didn't feel like he could give up his collection of books. Gandhi is said to have replied, "As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, you should keep it. If you were to give it up in a mood of self-sacrifice or out of a stern sense of duty, you would continue to want it back, and that unsatisfied want would make trouble for you. Only give up a thing when you want some other condition so much that the thing no longer has any attraction for you."

My take on this, and on your question, is that simplicity is not an endstate that is achieved but a path that one is walking. I find all kinds of ways in my life that I'm not living quite like I wish, and then I try to see if there is a way to change my life. So, to me, a simple lifestyle is always in the middle ground.

What I would encourage people to do is to ask themselves why they really want whatever thing it is they think they want and then to ask themselves two questions. First, is it really worth all the work and effort and such that it takes to get that thing? Is a $4 latte worth the effort it took to make the money to buy it? Second, what are the social and ecological costs of this thing I want? Does buying this fit with my values, with what I think is really good for the world?
If people ask these questions, then I think they can answer your questions for themselves.
Stay tuned for the upcoming Alpha Consumer podcast featuring Kasser.
Tags: happiness

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H1B

Hi All!!

Search for 'H1B official website' on Google. Some Anti-Outsourcing group has, using SEO and google bombing techniques, made a anti-outsourcing website, the Number one result in the Google Result Page. The said website, [send them back.org] (and please don't link to it), starts with ..."

Are you sick and tired of seeing your country turned into a Third World sewer by immigration? Are you tired of seeing your standard of living drop and our jobs exported to China? Are you tired of armies of H1B workers being imported from India to take what few jobs we have left?

Are you tired of having to skip 1 for Spanish and 2 for Chinese? Are you tired of pressing 3 for English and getting a receptionist who barely speaks it?".This is a kind of hate website, but google will not ban it from its serp, since it is apparetly not spamming. Since google display the results based on an algorithm, it is easy for us, IT workers to beat this website in their own game.

What we can at least do is try to beat this website from at least the number one spot on the Google Search Engine Result Page, with a little SEO. Search Engine Optimisation, for those came in late.One very basic technique is to link the genuine H1B websites with the anchor text as 'H1B official website' .Below is a list of the other seach results on google search results page.

If you are a blogger, please provide hyperlink to the links below with the anchor text 'H1B official website' http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscishttp://www.infinitilaw.com/h1bquotacount.htmlhttp://www.buchanan.org/blog/?p=618Write a blog post on H1B and link to the above websites, with the anchor text, 'H1B official website'. I suggest that you link to these sites on your home page, on the sidebar or the footer also.It will take only a few minutes..Please spread the word.Many of the Indian Blogger are from the IT industry, and I hope it will be pretty easy to unrank this website.Are you game for it?Start Spreading the word.Fast!!!And the Link should look this:1. H1B official website2. H1B official website 3. H1B official website4. H1b Official WebsiteAnd please don't hyperlink to [send themback.or g], the link will make our effort futile...Timesofindia story on the same.




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H-1B visa

The H-1B is a non-immigrant visa in the United States under the Immigration & Nationality Act, section 101(a)(15)(H). It allows U.S. employers to employ foreign guest workers skilled in specialty occupations - regardless of whether qualified U.S. citizens or residents are available to fill these jobs. [1]

The regulations define a “specialty occupation” as requiring theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge in a field of human endeavor including, but not limited to, architecture, engineering, mathematics, physical sciences, social sciences, medicine and health, education, law, accounting, business specialties, theology, and the arts, and requiring the attainment of a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent as a minimum. Likewise, the foreign worker must possess at least a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent and state licensure, if required to practice in that field. H-1B work-authorization is strictly limited to employment by the sponsoring employer - except that many H-1B work for bodyshops who then place them with third party employers.

Contents
1 Duration of Stay
2 Congressional Yearly Numerical Cap
3 Employer Attestations to Protect U.S. Workers
4 H-1B Fees Earmarked for U.S. Worker Education and Training
5 Taxation status of H-1B workers
6 H-1B employment
7 U.S. policy on maximum duration
8 H-1B and legal immigration
9 Quotas and changes in quotas
10 H-1B-dependent employers
11 Criticisms of the Program
11.1 Guy Santiglia v. Sun Microsystems
12 Criticisms by H-1B holders
12.1 Payment of in-state tuition
12.2 Taxation
12.3 Spouses cannot work
12.4 An H-1B Worker Faces Additional Obstacles at His/Her Workplace
13 Worker protection and law enforcement
14 Recent changes to U.S. law
15 Similar programs
16 Dependents of H-1B visa holders
17 H-1B demographics
18 Usage of H-1B by outsourcing firms
19 Top ten H-1B rankings
20 References
21 Notes
22 See also
23 External links for H-1B information
23.1 Abuse of the H-1B Program
23.2 Advocacy efforts

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Management consulting

Management consulting refers to both the industry, and the practice of, helping organizations improve their performance, primarily through the thorough analysis of existing business problems and development of plans for improvement. Organizations hire the services of management consultants for a number of reasons, including, for example, to gain external and presumably more objective advice and recommendations, to gain access to the consultants' specialized expertise, or simply as temporary help during a one-time project, where the hiring of permanent employees is not required. Because of their exposure to and relationships with numerous organizations, consultancies are also said to be aware of industry 'best practices,' although the transferability of such practices from one organization to another is the subject of debate. Consultancies may also provide organizational change management assistance, development of coaching skills, technology implementation, strategy development, or operational improvement services. Management consultants generally bring their own, proprietary methodologies or frameworks to guide the identification of problems, and to serve as the basis for recommendations for more effective or efficient ways of performing business tasks.
Management consulting refers generally to the provision of business consulting services, but there are numerous specializations, such as information technology consulting, human resource consulting, and others, many of which overlap, and most of which are offered by the large diversified consultancies listed below. So-called 'boutique' consultancies, however, are smaller organizations specializing in one or a few of such specializations.

Management Consulting is becoming more prevalent in non-business related fields as well. As the need for professional and specialized advice grows, other industries such as government, quasi-government and not-for-profit agencies are turning to the same managerial principles that have helped the private sector for years.


One important and recent change in the industry has been the spin-off or separation of the consulting and the accounting units of the large diversified firms. For these firms, which began business as accounting firms, management consulting was a new extension to their business. But precipitated by a number of highly publicized scandals over accounting practices, such as the Enron scandal, accountancies began divestiture of their management consulting units, to more easily comply with tighter regulatory scrutiny that arose in the wake of the scandals.

Contents
1 History
2 Current state of the industry
3 Government consultants
3.1 United Kingdom
4 Rise of internal corporate consulting groups
5 Approaches
6 Criticism
7 Professional qualifications
8 See also
8.1 Areas of action of Consulting
8.2 Related Culture
8.3 Institutes
9 External links
10 References
//

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Thanks Freddy

...

TECHNIP

Offshore field development
Subsea products
Pipelay and subsea construction
Subsea maintenance
Floating and fixed platforms
Subsea field decommissioning
Mooring services
Drilling and service applications


Onshore Field development
Gas treatment and liquefaction
Oil refining
Hydrogen - Syngas - GTL
Sulfur
Onshore pipelines
Petrochemicals (ethylene, aromatics, olefins, polymers)
Advanced systems engineering
Refining and onshore applications


Chemicals, pyrotechnics
Fertilizers
Life sciences
Agro-industries
Metals
Power generation
Cement
Manufacturing industries
Buildings



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Refineries

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Management lesson:

Johnny wanted to have s XX with a girl in his office, but she belonged to someone else...

One day, Johnny got so frustrated that he went up to her and said, 'I'll give you a $100 if you let me screw you. But the girl said NO.
Johnny said, 'I'll be fast. I'll throw the money on the floor, you bend down, and I'll be finished by the time you pick it up. '
She thought for a moment and said that she would have to consult her boyfriend... So she called her boyfriend and told him the story.
Her boyfriend says, 'Ask him for $200, pick up the money very fast, he won't even be able to get his pants down.'
So she agrees and accepts the proposal. Half an hour goes by, and the boyfriend is waiting for his girlfriend to call.
Finally, after 45 minutes, the boyfriend calls and asks what happened.
She responded, 'The b @ stard used coins!'

Management lesson: Always consider a business proposal in its entirety before agreeing to it and getting screwed!