World economies and the principles that underpin them were created to ensure basic living standards for us all. Not only has this ideal yet to be fully realised it appears to have been hijacked along the way.

Even those of us who are relatively more prosperous and enjoy a good basic standard of living have become enjoined into and some may even say trapped into the unrelenting greed of world economies. Yes we may be experiencing better standards of living than other people but we have somehow exchanged our freedom for the need to constantly feed our insatiable desires.

Hedonism is alive and well on planet earth. It has become the catch phrase of modern living.

Our world economies are based on the simple principle of “supply and demand”. If there is a demand someone will supply the product or service that satisfies that demand. That in and of itself is a relatively simple and useful process however it is when the demand is manipulated for the sole intent to satisfy the greed of a powerful few that it starts to become more insidious.

The Media has become saturated with overt as well as subliminal calls to the general public to respond to advertisers suggestive offers that are too good to be ignored. This has created a never ending desire to have the cheapest, the best, the best branded, the most useful products or services that the market has to offer – whether we need them or not. Our wants have been trained to respond ahead of our actual needs.

We have become attached to our wants. When our consumer desires are satisfied we experience short term happiness and satisfaction. It is not long however  before we become bored and complacent again and recommence the never ending search for that illusory point where we  can live in a state of perpetual satisfaction and happiness. Sounds like a familiar Rolling Stones song “I can’t get no satisfaction”!

The current global economic predicament has been caused by our rampant and insatiable desire to have more and more and the associated greed of those with money to lend that to us to enable us to get what we want regardless of whether we can afford it or not. We have become  trapped by not only the need to generate higher and higher levels of income to support our consumer habits but also by our attachment to all that stuff we cannot afford. We find ourselves having to move quicker and quicker on the wheel of life to stay upright. There does however come a point when we lose our balance and that is when we start to lose our grip on everything we have strived so long and hard for.

The sad way out from such a loss chosen by some who have lost everything has been to end their lives. This action has an irreversible result for the perpetrator themselves and a traumatic impact on family left behind. This is not the answer.

There is a simple answer to this crisis. It requires us to become financially self-response-able. It requires us  to carry out an audit of our current financial predicament. It requires a new mental attitude that focusses on debt reduction, increased income streams and a simplification of our lives ( less becomes more). We need to develop a new way of living within our means. Who is following this conversation?

I speak from personal experience here. When you own or should I say the bank owns more of your assets than you do and when your assets have lost value then it is time to take stock and think again. New Zealanders have been raised on the notion of owning their own home – “the Kiwi Dream”. Yet while the property market has been in freefall for some time it still costs an arm and a leg to own your own home. Once you add into the equation insurance, rates and maintenance costs it quickly becomes clear that it is almost impossible to save money in the short term when you are a long term property owner.

I have made the decision to simplify my life. It has not been easy as I have become emotionally invested in my assets. It has required me to develop a new mindset. That of a property investor. I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel that leads to financial freedom. Long term satisfaction can be achieved when we embrace the idea that in having and being less we become more. We are who we are as opposed to what we have achieved and what we own.

Happiness and satisfaction are a result of just being free to be who we are and not what others or our egos expect us to be.