We live in a society where upgrading generally means paying more but also getting more, a logical path in capitalist societies. I am a believer in capitalism because we’ve seen over and over that without some kind of incentive people tend to under-perform- vis a vis the Soviet Union for example. This is not at odds with my stance on stuff because regardless of how idealistic I might be (not very, to be honest) I know that we’re unlikely to be happy living in a cave wrapped in a smelly bearskin.

The paradox is that quality of life is not in any way based on how much you pay, if you take the time to make good choices. As I’ve written about I recently made a move to save some money on housing costs. I looked at a lot of apartments and chose one of five I looked at in the same building. When I made that choice several weeks ago I probably spent all of five minutes in the apartment I picked. I really couldn’t remember a lot of details about it and was keeping my fingers crossed that I had not made a poor decision. Given that I was paying several hundred dollars less than my previous place I expected compromises when I actually saw the place after committing to it.

Long story short, it is much nicer than my last place. This got me thinking about choices when we acquire things. I shop every week at our Public Market on Saturday mornings. It is more than shopping, it’s like a village market day where you know the vendors, familiar faces are everywhere and sitting at one of the cafes means carrying on a steady stream of conversations. Don’t get me wrong- this is not some idyllic West Coast town. Our population is over a million, the market is large and filled with a lot of Chinese container junk in addition to the fruit, fish, flower and meat merchants and the neighborhood where it is located is riddled with boarded up houses- you’d avoid it on non-market days. However the shopping is far better than our local groceries (Wegmans) which are widely heralded as the best in the country, and far cheaper.

Examples abound. A small well-designed and built house can be a better place to live than a MacMansion knocked together by drunken contractors whose only quality criteria is how fast they can work. My 2008 Civic is a better car than my 2004 Accord which was a very good car- and the Civic was $5000 less and gets 6 miles more per gallon, saving me even more money.

Electronics are another example. I replaced a company-supplied top of the line MacBook Pro with the cheapest plastic MacBook when I left that job. I see very little difference except for the screen being smaller and the Macbook weighing a lot less. MacBook Pro= $2600, MacBook= $1300.

So housing, food, transportation and tools can all be had for much less, with zero sacrifice, if you change your perspective about how you make buying decisions. It’s not rocket science and it can be a lot more fun- when is the last time you looked forward to grocery shopping?

I am moving this weekend. I’m moving from a fairly luxurious 2 bedroom apartment to a smaller but very nice one bedroom in an Art Deco building in the same neighborhood. The move is going to save me $400/month in rent and utilities, enough to spend an extra weekend in NY every couple of months. I’m thrilled about it.

Downsizing means looking closely at all of your stuff and clearing out the things you don’t need. In my case 75% of my books were either donated to the library store or curbed because of being old. The curbed ones disappeared instantly. I also got rid of any clothing I have not worn in the past year and any kitchen stuff that I don’t ever use. The feeling you get when you let this stuff go is amazing.

The Buddhists know that desire for material things causes suffering. These days I literally feel weighed down by my stuff and there is very little that I feel any strong connection with, excepting personal things made by or given by friends and family. My father died last fall and I have a copper vessel he made on my coffee table. It is priceless to me. Not much else is.

The current recession is causing most of my friends to reevaluate the things we value vs. those we covet. I talked with my friend Danny who, when he downsized, got rid of boxes of old magazines and a lot of other stuff. His friends told him to sell it on Ebay but he recycled via the curb like I did- and said it was liberating.

This trend- and I believe a lot of people are onboard- is a sea change for American society. Our realization that we have been foolish in our endless need for more stuff is not reversible. I’ll never be buying a luxury car, a big house or a giant TV no matter what my financial situation is. I simply have no need for the ego boost these things represent.

I believe many of my fellow boomers are coming to the same conclusion. We’re a rebellious lot and we’re actively rebelling against excess. And you know what? Life is a lot simpler without all that crap.

I’ve spent the last five or six years in various senior marketing and management roles for start-ups (software) and an agency. With all the job losses in the past year, including mine, I’ve come to the conclusion that everyone is, in essence, self-employed. With little or no real job security, we have to treat the work part of our lives in a very different way.

Job security no longer exists

Why do I say there’s no job security? Well, if you’re about to graduate from college it is estimated that you will have had 15 jobs by age 35. By my count that’s a lot of job changes. Even us 40+ people are now experiencing career changes that were unthinkable to many only a few years ago. There are many who are shell-shocked by the loss of the ‘only’ job they’ve had for many years. In a meeting of the recently unemployed I attended as part of my benefits it was apparent that fear was the dominant emotion being expressed.

Skills replace job security

I’m fortunate in that I never believed in job security unless you were doing something indispensable and I can’t think of any examples of that. I have a lot of skills and I’ve kept up with the constantly evolving trends in my discipline (online marketing and communications). I also have a mindset that tends to move forward rather than hold onto cherished beliefs. In my change message here I’m going to assert that this is not only a desireable way to look at things, it is an inevitable one.

How do you accomplish this flexibility? First look at your skills, not the amorphous ones, the real ones. Building a successful web site is a skill, managing a meeting is not. In these times you need tactical skills as opposed to strategic skills. That’s because tactics deliver sooner and recession business management is first and foremost survival management. What can you make? What can you deliver? What specifically can you do to help people now? If you cannot answer that with measurable outcomes (numbers, not concepts), you need to develop some skills pronto.

Connecting is more important than networking

You also need connections. As the founder of two very successful networking groups, I’m not going to slam networking but…you’re wasting your time networking with other out of work people with one exception. The exception is if you are looking for ad hoc project partners. Successful networking means going where the people who can use your skills are. One of my groups has evolved into primarily unemployed folks seeking ‘connections’. It fits all the conventional requirements for networking. I no longer participate because these people are not able to help me move forward- it’s not personal.

Connecting is sharing value mutually

The other group is a group of area CEOs of small to mid-sized businesses. It is totally private and job seekers and vendors are not invited. This is important because this is a peer group. We started it because of a shared interest in the economic development of our region. I’m an organizer and a former senior management person so I sort of qualify, sort of. I wouldn’t miss these meetings for the world because the discussion level is very interesting.

Connections are not people you exchange business cards with. They are people with whom you’ve found an engrossing mutual interest, one that will continue beyond your initial meeting. They are people who will return your calls and whose calls you will gladly take. One of the prime skills of thriving during change is understanding what you have to offer, finding those who value it and making a connection that shares value equally.

There is a floating island of plastic debris in the Pacific Ocean the size of Texas. The plastic bag you get from the grocery store will be around longer than your grandchildren. Attempts to create bio-plastic from corn that will degrade more rapidly and eliminate the use of petro-products are not making progress, in part because they cost more and are not as durable- sort of the point I guess. The hope is that product packaging will incorporate these bio-degradable materials because that excessive packing goes directly into landfills without reuse. This won’t happen unless consumers demand the change because of cost.

I am very uncomfortable buying anything made of or packaged in plastic products. The only exceptions might be very high quality items, preferably made of recycled materials, that I am reasonably sure will still be desirable and functional for the foreseeable future. One of the changes I’ve made in the last year is to examine my purchases from a long term perspective. Do I really need this? Can I find an alternative that has less packaging? Can I find it used? Are there versions that are not indestructible?

Perhaps the worst offenders are food products packaged in plastic containers. Metal cans and glass bottles are totally recyclable yet more and more food products are being packed in plastic, much of which is not recycled. The solution to this is fairly easy: Buy canned or bottled products when you really need something ready made. Learn to cook and use fresh ingredients that don’t need packaging. In my local grocery I can get meat packed in aseptic plastic packaging or meat wrapped in paper by the butcher, not a hard choice. The aseptically packaged food may last much longer but the packaging itself trumps that- it will around for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

We should think about what our grandchildren will wonder about when they think about the choices we made. What were we thinking when we wasted precious resources to make plastic bags, bubble packaging, dollar store tschotkes, etc, etc.? Why did we leave these mountainous piles of plastic outside of every city and town? How dumb was that?

It doesn’t mean that just because we may not be around to answer those questions that we don’t have to. We have to ask ourselves, every time we buy something: ‘what is the long term effect of this choice?’. And we have to justify to ourselves the same way we would if our children were demanding the same answers from us.