[SPEAKER_00]: You are listening to Blessed and Boston, presented by Anchor DeMedia.
[SPEAKER_00]: In entrepreneurship podcasts for Christians, all about how to make God the CEO of your business.
[SPEAKER_00]: Get ready to be inspired, challenged, but well equipped to live and build your destiny, his way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey guys, welcome to another episode of The Blessed Embossed at Podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: He listened to last week's episode, then you know that I'm having a moving sale to read all of the products that I have in my garage for a very, very low price.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a reminder that those products we do still have some available.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the devotionals completely gone, but we do have other products available.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have visible copies of my prayer journal.
[SPEAKER_00]: The God is my CEO, prayer journal, my podcast planner.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So thank you guys so much with taking advantage so far all the order that have gone in since the last episode will be sent out this week and I pray that these products bless you.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, and today's episode, we are continuing on with our discussion of the ruthless elimination of Hurray.
[SPEAKER_00]: We find ourselves now at the end of the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: We got through all the preliminary issues of why Hurray is a problem, and we are in the last section where we're talking about the four principles to live by,
[SPEAKER_00]: to live an unhurried life.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are at the solution.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I wanted to end this off by us just in each episode going through each four so that we can apply this to our lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: Last week we talked about the Sabbath.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I still have yet to sit with the Lord about it, sit with myself, talk to my husband about like, you know, how can we observe this as a family as a day of time togetherness of worship and the Lord of rest and all the things.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I do plan to do that soon, but one thing I did do, I went to chat GPT, which is the AI generative software I've used for years.
[SPEAKER_00]: I recently within the last six months switched over to cloud and I definitely prefer a cloud over chat GPT 100%.
[SPEAKER_00]: But chat GPT has a lot of context based off of me using it for so long.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I went over there and I was like,
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, I'm trying to, and I didn't even talk about the Sabbath.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just simply said that I was looking for restful activities that allowed me to slow down, that allowed me to rest to just appreciate the goodness of the Lord and all of the things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I told it based upon what you know about me give me some ideas of hobbies that I could do to be a part of my Sabbath practice.
[SPEAKER_00]: hobbies that aren't work, but fall into that rest and worship category, and they can't be something that is turned into a business at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it gave me like some really, really good options.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I got excited about some things that I think I'm going to do, something simple that it told me was to do like a floral arrangement.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I love flowers and it talked about me just creating my own floral arrangements.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just having them at home or giving them the family members, but it's something that forces me to slow down.
[SPEAKER_00]: It engages your senses because you're smelling the flowers, touching the flowers, you're appreciating the beauty of God's creation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, it could just be really a beautiful restful time to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have that on my list.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like,
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, that sounds good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would love to go to like Trader Joe's or Whole Foods Gate or a nice florist and get some different types of flowers and putting them putting these different arrangements together and then just having them in the house or giving them to family and loved ones for occasions or for no reason at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something else that put on my list was to create my own custom t-blins.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I really got excited about this because historically I have been a coffee girl.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm somebody who has my cup of coffee every morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: And depending on the day, so a lot going on, sometimes in the afternoon, I have another cup, but lately, I've really loved tea lately as in like maybe the last year or so my husband's a tea drinker as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he kind of got me into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where at in the evening, I'll have like a wind down cup of like came a meal lavender coffee that helps me relax and transition into.
[SPEAKER_00]: sleep mode.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I need to pick me up in the afternoon, but I don't want like the full caffeine of coffee.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have usually a cup of like green tea.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like this green tea mix with Jasmine that I have right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: My husband he went to Nigeria recently, but his layover was in Turkey.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he brought back some Turkish coffee that I mean tea that we've really been enjoying as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've enjoyed exploring different teas for different purposes and all of the ways in which you could blend these or buy these different earth blends to serve a particular purpose, whether it's for health benefits or just for ritual purposes to relax or to wake up or whatever the case may be booster mood things of that nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Chad had given me this idea of doing different tea blends and how I could, for example, y'all know like to cook as well, peel a orange and dry it out in an oven and add that like shave it and add that to my tea mixture for the aromatics if I wanted something to drink earlier in the morning and it just gave me all of these ideas.
[SPEAKER_00]: about this particular hobby.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, man, this will be really, really fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I suggest I'd say that to say as you figure out what rest in Sabbath and slowing down looks like for you,
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about going to some of these tools that you tell your whole life to and ask it to give you some ideas because chat was pretty spot on based off of what it knows about me, different things that I would enjoy doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some looking forward to sitting down and ironing out what the set it looks like, but that got me excited because it gave me some ideas.
[SPEAKER_00]: and tell me email me, DM me on social media, what are some ideas that you're going to be implementing for your service?
[SPEAKER_00]: Leave a comment if you're listening to this on Spotify and tell me how you've been applying the different things we've learned thus far in this book.
[SPEAKER_00]: So today's chapter in the third principle on living an unhurried life is all about simplicity.
[SPEAKER_00]: He starts the chapter off saying, let's start out with a few sayings of Jesus that, if we're honest, most of us disagree with, or at least dislike.
[SPEAKER_00]: Watch out, be on your guard against all kinds of greed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions, or sell your possessions and give it to the poor.
[SPEAKER_00]: do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink or about your body, what you will wear.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is not life more than food and the body more than clothes, seek first God's kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: It continues on to quote, the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and desires for other things come in and choke the world, making it unfruitful.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, now for someone who was rich to enter the kingdom of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, if you're not on board with Jesus' view of money, it could be that you, like many Christians in the West, myself included until quite recently, and with frequent relapses, don't actually believe the gospel of the kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: The good news that the life you've always wanted is fully available to you right where you are through Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: through him, you have access to the father's loving presence, nothing, not your income level or stage of life or health or relational status, nothing is standing between you and the life that is truly life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's be introspective for a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something that I always ask people when I'm teaching on doing business God's way, I ask a hard question of If God's purpose for your entrepreneurial endeavors did not amass financial wealth
[SPEAKER_00]: if it did not look the way that your vision board looks.
[SPEAKER_00]: If your business only helped one person a year and that was God's will, if you only sold three products a year and that was God's will, even if you only made enough money to break even, and that was God's will, would you be okay with that?
[SPEAKER_00]: If
[SPEAKER_00]: a successful by the world's standards, business was not God's will for you, would you be satisfied?
[SPEAKER_00]: And let's take it a step further, would you still follow him or will you then take things into your own hands so that you can build it in a way that it is satisfactory to you?
[SPEAKER_00]: I know when I pride will be like, of course, I'm, of course I will still follow Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing's gonna stop me from following the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I hear you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And also, let's be honest.
[SPEAKER_00]: because the truth of that question will reveal a deeper need of something that needs to be surrendered and transformed by the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I always asked that question because that's the question that the Lord asked me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told you guys how, when I first gave my business and everything over to him, he had me study the book of Jeremiah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in studying at book, the Lord asked me,
[SPEAKER_00]: who wasn't rich wealthy or successful by the world standards, but was obedient and the Lord was pleased with, if your life looked like he is, and not will you envision, would you still follow me?
[SPEAKER_00]: My honest answer was no.
[SPEAKER_00]: My foundation of my relationship with the Lord is honest and vulnerability.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will always tell God the truth because it is through that truth and that vulnerability that he can heal in me what needs to be healed and give me wisdom in areas where I'm foolish.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that was an area where I said, God honestly know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't follow you with my life looks like Jeremiah.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, I want to be in a place to where I would.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to be in a place to where no matter what my life looks like, I will be satisfied by simply obeying you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you help me get there?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I gave the Lord my truth, but also gave Him my willingness to be transformed and so much has come from that decision.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I ask you to be introspective and think after reading these things of Jesus, after reading the gospels, would you be satisfied by just finding the fullness of life in him?
[SPEAKER_00]: Perry, nothing else, but just finding your satisfaction and the fullness of life solely in him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not in money, not in things, not in accolades, but in him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not saying that you'll be poor, but if you just had only what you need as far as your natural needs and Jesus, with that level of simplicity be one that you will willingly take on.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the answer to that?
[SPEAKER_00]: I suggest that you answer that, answer it honestly, and if the answer is no, ask the Lord to help you get to the place where the answer will be yes, and be willing and obedient.
[SPEAKER_00]: to following whatever path or process he takes you through for your answer to be yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all of the discomfort that is going to come with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if your answer was no, the author says, it could be that you believe in another gospel, another vision of what the good life is and how you obtain it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's call it the gospel of America.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, materialism has become the new dominant system of meaning.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, atheism hasn't replaced cultural Christianity, shopping has.
[SPEAKER_00]: We even get our identity from the things that we buy or sell.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of us will never admit it, but a lot of us believe the saying I am what I buy or more realistically I am what I wear or the brand of my phone or the car I drive or the neighborhood I live in or the gadget I fly.
[SPEAKER_00]: For a lot of people, things aren't just things, their identities.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shopping is now the number one leisure activity in America.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're surfing the place previously held by religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amazon.com is the new temple.
[SPEAKER_00]: The visa statement is the new altar.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lifestyle bloggers are the priests in the priestess.
[SPEAKER_00]: Money is the new guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a reason the only other God Jesus ever called out by name was maiming the God of money because it's a bad God and a lousy religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I first started building a brand online, let's say instead, let's take instant brand because when I first started it was like 2012 and I was in undergrad and I had a blog online.
[SPEAKER_00]: and so blogging was very popular back then, but blogging was very word-based.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will have pictures and things like that, especially if they were like travel bloggers or fashion bloggers, you will see like photos and things of their travels or their outfits.
[SPEAKER_00]: But uh, blogging primarily was text-based.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Instagram came out, I was, I will say maybe my freshman year of undergrad, and but I didn't start trying to build a brand on social media until maybe like 2016, 2017.
[SPEAKER_00]: and around that time once Instagram evolved from just being a place where you were sharing photos with your friends to being this place where people were building brands and transitioning from like the Blocksphere to social media and YouTube and all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: People used to do the most to build credibility, where they would pose in front of vehicles that wasn't theirs, like, I had somebody I do personally, and she did a photo shoot at the National Harbor, which is right outside a DC, but it's a bougie place where folks hang out.
[SPEAKER_00]: and so you'll you'll you're liable to see like nice cars and things like that at the harbour and she did like a photo shoot for social media and for like her business but she was posing outside of these cars that were not hers like the Porsche's the G wagons these luxury vehicles and what like posted on Instagram and just use it as a part of content
[SPEAKER_00]: Why are we posing outside of vehicles that are not ours and this is part of the reason why I never wanted to build a brain on social media and watch shows podcast and because I just could not get with this level of fake it to you make it like that just wasn't my style at all I would rather just be real honest do the work and have results that I use to promote what I'm doing and not cloud or
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know the appearance of doing well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Around this same era, in my millennials will remember this, the rapper, BaWao, had posted a photo of him on a private plane and posted it as a flex.
[SPEAKER_00]: somebody was on the actual commercial flight that he was on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not the private plane.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was on a commercial flight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone took a photo of him and posted it pretty much exposing that he was lying about how he was traveling.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so then it comes out that he had took photos on the private jet.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then actually took the flight with the commercial airline and it was just this whole thing, but that is just a representation of that era and that era is still very much so alive today where we judge people.
[SPEAKER_00]: people's credibility based upon the things that they had, if they have a nice car, oh, they must be doing well.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had this lifestyle, this emergence of lifestyle marketing or this emergence of lifestyle content creation, where people portray certain lifestyle and then us as the viewers or the consumers, place a level of credibility on them, simply based on what
[SPEAKER_00]: or authenticate in any type of way and it is very scary what the world has come to as it relates to things and because we place these values on people based on things it just further perpetuates people's use of things to identify themselves or to make themselves feel good and look as if they're living a certain type of way.
[SPEAKER_00]: As I've grown, this bothers me even more because back then, I was like, all right, that's just what people do.
[SPEAKER_00]: They fake it today, make it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like it, but to each is on was my mindset, but now seeing how that
[SPEAKER_00]: fake it to you, make it has morphed into fraud, scams, grifting, all types of foolishness.
[SPEAKER_00]: It genuinely bothers me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as Christians, we have to guard ourselves against this and consistently reject it because if we do not.
[SPEAKER_00]: Slowly, but surely, we'll start following Maman, the God of Money, to where now we've accepted that it is things that make our identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is what we drive, what we wear, how good our makeup is that
[SPEAKER_00]: drives credibility to us as entrepreneurs, and so now we are chasing money so that we can get more things.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're spending money so we can look like we have money so that we can impress folks and it's just
[SPEAKER_00]: a very dangerous path, and us as Christians have to fully reject it, and us as Christian entrepreneurs and people who operate in whether your business is in person or in the online space, especially it is very tempting, but we have to actively guard ourselves against it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the author goes on to give a little history lesson where he talked about how over a century ago 90% of Americans were farmers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life was hard, yes, but it was simpler too.
[SPEAKER_00]: We mostly lived off the land and traded with our neighbors for anything else we needed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Money was rarely even used and most of the things we owned fell into the category of needs not once.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today, only 2% of Americans working agriculture.
[SPEAKER_00]: The last century has radically reshaped the American economy.
[SPEAKER_00]: It started with urbanization and its twin industrialization.
[SPEAKER_00]: People moved to cities by the droves for jobs where goods were produced in mass.
[SPEAKER_00]: The two world wars,
[SPEAKER_00]: the military industrial complex and wants to tumult of war calm down the power brokers of the day had to find a way to keep all those factories open and people employed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tank factories were repurposed to make t-shirts.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not much of a conspiracy there is, but it's an open secret that after the war, the tycoons of big business, the shadow politicians of DC and the madman
[SPEAKER_00]: their agenda to create an entire economy and with it culture out of consumerism, to get the children of a bunch of simple farmers to spend their time and money buying up the latest thing, hot off the assembly line.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the think of a patient of American society.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, one Wall Street banker said this, we must shift America from a needs to a desire's culture.
[SPEAKER_00]: People must be trained to desire to want new things, even before the old have been entirely concerned.
[SPEAKER_00]: We must shape a new mentality.
[SPEAKER_00]: Man's desires must overshadow his needs.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, sounds like an evil genius from a sci-fi movie?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, that was Paul Maser of the Lehman Brothers.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says ES cadre a pioneer of industrial relations, called the new economic gospel of consumption, note his language gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: And tragically, their evil plan worked perfectly.
[SPEAKER_00]: In 1927, one journalist observed this about America.
[SPEAKER_00]: A change has come over our democracy.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's called consumptionism.
[SPEAKER_00]: The American citizens' first importance in his country is now no longer that of citizen, but of consumer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fast forward to today, our consumer economy is now built around people spending money that they don't have on things that they don't need.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we all heard how our apartments and homes are twice the size that they were in at 50s while our families are half the size.
[SPEAKER_00]: This book came out in 2019.
[SPEAKER_00]: So much has happened even in the online world since he wrote this book,
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a bit of a controversial take.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hear me out, this is unprocessed.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I may have to record this a couple of times because I just thought about this as I was reading the excerpt from the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I'm about to say is directed towards Christian people in this context.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not expecting anybody who does not want to live a life dedicated to following the Lord to live by his principles.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you are a Christian and you consider yourself to be a content creator and you're someone who is online recommending products who is showing people your different outfits and then linking it in your LTK or in your Amazon storefront or in your TikTok shop, whatever platform that you use to drive sales to these different products in order for you to generate income,
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to pose this as a question.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you feel?
[SPEAKER_00]: like that particular activity.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm only discussing the selling stuff part, encouraging people to consume more.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the only part of what you do that I'm asking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I'm sure that is a small part in all the ways in which you add value to your community.
[SPEAKER_00]: But for that small part of encouraging people
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll put an asterisk next to need because it can be debatable if they needed or not.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you feel my question is, do you feel that that contributes to consumerism?
[SPEAKER_00]: And if so, do you feel like that conflicts or is intentioned with the way that Jesus called us to live?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not trying to be accusatory or anything of that nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just a question I thought about as I was reading it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's one that I can sit with too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all here with the sponsors on this podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: I recommend various products and services via sponsored ads.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's also a question that I can sit with as well and I plan to because I do think it is worth zooming in only.
[SPEAKER_00]: as a way to polish how we do things to make sure that we are in alignment with how the Lord wants us to live and contributing in a way that sends people closer to Christ and not pull people away from him intentionally or unintentionally.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's worth zooming in on.
[SPEAKER_00]: to see if there's room for improvement, if there's room to be more selective in the types of things that we recommend or the volume of things we recommend is there room to maybe add some disclaimers to the post about consumerism or I don't know, these are just unorganized unprocessed thoughts, but I think that it is worth
[SPEAKER_00]: Some introspection is worth taking to prayer and is worth sitting with for a little bit and then letting the Lord guide us as far as what or if anything needs to be adjusted as we continue on.
[SPEAKER_00]: The author goes on to say, so what to do?
[SPEAKER_00]: Go back to the hole in the backyard as our toilet give up running water, burn our debit cards.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, that wouldn't fix the problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the problem isn't stuff, it's that we put no limit on stuff due to our insatiable human desire for more.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we think we need all sorts of things to be happy when in actuality we need very few.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus and the writers of the New Testament put a number of our material needs at the whopping of two things, food and clothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: First Timothy 6 and 8 says, if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like all the most dangerous lies, it's a half true.
[SPEAKER_00]: More money does make you happier if you're poor.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hate the way some idealistic Christians who
[SPEAKER_00]: lifting people out of poverty will make them happier but only up to a point.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we know exactly what that point is, 75,000 dollars.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I don't have it at this because I'm like, well, who point is that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because this is where I guess my low materialism start coming into 75.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, I'm a here you out, John Mark Homer, I'm a here you out, but you lost me at the second, you lost me for a half a second at the 75.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says in a landmark study out of Princeton University, two great minds collaborated on a nationwide research project.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dr. Daniel Common, a noble prize winning psychologist, and Dr. Angus Deaton, a well-respected economist, spent months pouring over the data from 450,000 Gallup surveys and concluded that your overall well-being does rise with your income, but only to a point.
[SPEAKER_00]: After that, you either plateau or worse decline.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's Deaton in his own words.
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter where you live, you're emotional well-being as it's good as it's going to get at $70,000.
[SPEAKER_00]: And money is not going to make it any better beyond that point.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like you hit some sort of ceiling and you can't get emotional well-being much higher just by having more money.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, that number is a national average.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will be less for, say, a single college kid living in Sarasota Springs than for a family of five living in San Francisco.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jennifer Robinson, in her summary of common and deem's research, says that it's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: $75,000 won't go very far in big cities.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it makes sense that a high cost of living will make even large sums feel puny.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, the study still indicates that $75,000 is the limit, even in large, expensive cities.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turns out, once you reach what most Westerners classify as a middle class life, money and stuff just can't deliver what they promise happiness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, because I disagree wholeheartedly with that $75,000 number, I'm reading it in May of 2026.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I had to do some research to figure out when I noticed book came out in 2019, but I needed to know when this study was done, because I just could not fathom that this was an accurate number from how I'm reading it today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I do want to be clear for a lot of people $75,000 is a good amount of money.
[SPEAKER_00]: of if that is the true value of where that peak of happiness is, because you're essentially telling me that this is how much somebody needs to make to where if they go above that, it no longer is a contributor to their happiness.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't see that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think people can get buy off of 75,000, but I think that the threshold that we're discussing in this context has to
[SPEAKER_00]: that amount looks different for different family sizes, different cities, all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hear you, but I was like, absolutely not.
[SPEAKER_00]: I still feel like this number should be different.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I went to good old Claude and asked them, when was this study done?
[SPEAKER_00]: And what is the equivalent to that now?
[SPEAKER_00]: So they said the study was published in 2010, Daniel Common and Angus Deaton both professors at Princeton University published their landmark paper in 2010 showing that a rise in income increased people's well-being, but only up to a ceiling of $75,000.
[SPEAKER_00]: Beyond which there is no increase in well-being.
[SPEAKER_00]: The study analyzed responses from 450,000 Americans in 2008 and 2009.
[SPEAKER_00]: A couple of important nuances worth noting, first the study found money does buy emotional well-being, but only up to a certain point, the finding wasn't that $75,000 was all you needed to be content, but that daily happiness stopped improving beyond that income level.
[SPEAKER_00]: Secondly, beyond that threshold, additional income did not have a significant correlation to increased happiness.
[SPEAKER_00]: The concept of a happiness plateau remained the prominent theory for more than a decade until 2021 when University of Pennsylvania professor Matthew Killing's were published a new study challenging those conclusions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nevertheless, in today's dollars, that $75,000 figure is equivalent to roughly $108,500.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now that number makes a lot more sense to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I still think that it's now just as somebody who's a little bit bougie, I do think that number is low, however, if we're just talking about the simple things of life, I think that that's a solid, that's a solid number.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think even if you live.
[SPEAKER_00]: And or close to a major city and like a suburb, you own a home, even if you're a family, I still think that's a solid number.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you just consume the simple things, your kids go to the local public school, you all order from Costco for groceries.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think if you live simply and you don't consume a lot of stuff, or just have a lot of unnecessary expenses, I think that that's reasonable.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I still think though that it's arguable that that is a happiness plateau though because you can't tell me that if you have more money to be able to send, let's say your kids to a private school, that that wouldn't make you happier.
[SPEAKER_00]: For your kids to have a better quality education, a smaller class size, maybe more resources to help them thrive.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't tell me that that
[SPEAKER_00]: to be able to pour into your family, to be able to take vacations, at least let's say once a year.
[SPEAKER_00]: For you and your family to travel together, I would make you happier.
[SPEAKER_00]: For you and your spouse to be able to travel together with out your kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: That will cost more money.
[SPEAKER_00]: You would need to make more money to do that, but that would definitely make you happier.
[SPEAKER_00]: You being able to go on some solo trips to explore the world and see all the beautiful ways that All of the beautiful things that the Lord has created on this planet.
[SPEAKER_00]: That wouldn't make you happier.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do not agree at all with this happiness plateau and saying that there is a dollar amount that
[SPEAKER_00]: after you go above that you you're happy this isn't in fact I don't agree.
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe because I don't view more money as buying more stuff, I view having more money as buying more experiences and buying freedom, most importantly freedom of your time because if I have more money and I can pay somebody to clean my house, now instead of me spinning all day scrubbing the baseballers, my family can just go spend time together while somebody else does it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And by me having more money to buy a nicer vehicle, that vehicle is safer for my family.
[SPEAKER_00]: By me having more money to not have to work and spend my days working as a necessity and not as something that I just choose to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can spend my days finding other ways to be beneficial to the kingdom of God and to be beneficial to helping God's people to more money I have, the more money I can give.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't agree, I think I've said that a few times now, I simply don't agree.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, I hear what y'all saying, author and doctors and economists, I hear you, but I don't necessarily think that I can get with there's a number that you can place on happiness like this happiness plateau.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't really get with that concept, but interesting study nevertheless.
[SPEAKER_00]: The author goes on to say, one of the many reasons that happiness is dropping in the West, even as the Dow is rising, is because materialism has sped up our society to a frenetic and untenable pace.
[SPEAKER_00]: As Alan fading in cipherly said, the drive to possess is an engine for hurry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every single thing you buy cost you not only money, but also time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You buy that motorcycle you've always dreamed of.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's great.
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to ride.
[SPEAKER_00]: I miss it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't die.
[SPEAKER_00]: But make sure you do the math before you sign on the dotted line.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the math.
[SPEAKER_00]: to own a bike costs a lot more than just a $250 a month payment that you can't really afford.
[SPEAKER_00]: It costs you time.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to work more hours at your job to pay for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to move faster through your day to get everything done.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to keep your bike clean and maintain it.
[SPEAKER_00]: When it breaks, you have to fix it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, you have to ride it.
[SPEAKER_00]: all of this takes a lot of time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, you might be in a season of your life where you have time to burn, and you might decide that riding a motorcycle is a life-giving activity for your soul.
[SPEAKER_00]: Great.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not remotely against it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can vaguely remember a single similar season before kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when you run your cost benefit analysis, don't forget to calculate your pain for that experience not only for cash, but also in time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And less time
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether you're into motorcycles, sneakers, or Japanese anime, most of us simply have too much stuff to enjoy life at a healthy, unhurried pace.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember those predictions from the Nixon era that by now, we'd all be working three or four hours each morning and playing golf in the afternoon while the robots made our living for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: What happened?
[SPEAKER_00]: What part of the story is that we chose money and stuff over time and freedom?
[SPEAKER_00]: We opted for a new 4K projector for a movie night instead of a life of unhurry, serenity, and peace, and power.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of spending money to get time, we opted for the reverse.
[SPEAKER_00]: We spent time to get money.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is interesting that he makes this point to me because he is operating under the assumption that you spend money only on stuff and that the accumulation of money equates to the accumulation of stuff and that's not true like
[SPEAKER_00]: You can spend money on so many things other than stuff, even his example here about the motorcycle or he's talking about how every single thing you buy cost you not only money, but time if you spend more money, it won't cost you time either.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's talking about when you when it brings you up to fix it and you have to keep it clean and all of these things you just pay other people to do that or if you spend the money to get the best version of it you won't even have to get it fixed and maintain that often
[SPEAKER_00]: I had this conversation with my husband recently because we have two different philosophies on like buying cars, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: My husband is very frugal.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's an accountant.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's very frugal.
[SPEAKER_00]: He will rather buy a used car.
[SPEAKER_00]: He will rather buy something as practical, something that ideally just pay for.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll have to have payments and all of that, like very
[SPEAKER_00]: I say simple because it feels simple initially, but it becomes very complicated, very quick.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm the type of person where if I'm buying a car, I want the latest model, the latest version.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not just because I want the latest and greatest for vanity, but from my experience, when you buy a brand new car,
[SPEAKER_00]: You're spending more on a vehicle, but you don't have to maintain it as often as if when you're buying a more practical, simple vehicle.
[SPEAKER_00]: I bought two cars in my lifetime.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first one was brand new, it was a new sign.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the same year of the year that I bought it.
[SPEAKER_00]: All I have ever done on that car is take it to get an old change.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every time that old change is due, that's it.
[SPEAKER_00]: never had to get any maintenance done, never had to get anything fixed, get it washed and get my oil changes.
[SPEAKER_00]: 12 years later, I still drive it from time to time and only now do we have to get some work done to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's 12 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: I paid for the newest model brand new car, but I didn't have to pay for anything and I got the package that came with free oil changes, so I didn't have to pay for those either.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I didn't have to spend any extra time doing all of this maintenance stuff that he's talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second car my husband bought for me after we had our first son.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the same year 2020 and it's a G. That's my primary car still.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's 2026, 60 years later.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have to do any work on my car.
[SPEAKER_00]: I give my old changes, rotate the tires, all like the little typical things.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't pay for them because it was part of the package.
[SPEAKER_00]: No issues.
[SPEAKER_00]: My husband on the other hand has none of the maybe five or six practical air quote cars that he's bought over the years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Since we've been together, you know whose cars have been the last man standing in mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: because I believe that when you buy the newest vehicle, get all the bells and whistles, you don't have to deal with the headache in the meantime.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's why my perspective is money provides you the freedom of your time, the freedom to have options.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know that the author is correlating money with stuff to make his point.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think that it's missing the alternative perspective.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whenever we are teaching a message and we want people to buy in, we have to provide a holistic perspective taken into account opposing views.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that this lacks the perspective that money isn't just to buy stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: and simplicity doesn't mean less money either.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, yeah, I think that there's a huge perspective that's missing from his take.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think his take is correct.
[SPEAKER_00]: We shouldn't be accumulating stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, I believe his take is also underdeveloped.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're about halfway through this chapter.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a lot more to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're already a 42 minutes and I don't want to rush through the rest of it because he does give us some practical tips about 12.
[SPEAKER_00]: He talks about Jesus next and he has about 12 practical tips on how we can live more simply.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm going to stop here and we'll pick that up in the next episode to finish the chapter.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you guys so much for listening to another episode of The Blessed and Boston podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't forget to grab the items that are available in the moving sale.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll put the links in the show notes, uh, me going through all the products, and also the link for you to make your purchases.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for everybody who has or thank you to everybody who has purchased so far.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love you guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening to this show, and I'll see you in the next one.