Affluenza

We all worry about birds-flu and pigs-flu. But who noticed that many people around us are suffering from affluenza?

Affluenza is a blend-word between affluence and influenza. It’s a ‘socially transmitted disease’ resulting from focusing too much on getting money. Once contracted, you start suffering from overworking and anxiety.

***
There are two aspects related to affluenza: consumerism and workaholism.

Consumerism is easy to fix with simple things like sticking to a monthly budget and minimizing the usage of credit card. Workaholism, however, is hard to fix. Its only cure is work-life balance.

What’s work-life-balance?
Most would say it’s about having more free time. But that’s not possible for everyone.

Good news is: work-life balance does NOT mean an equal split between work and personal life. This differs according to the life-stage and career-stage (for instance: being single vs. being married; having kids or not; just starting a new job or about to retire, and so on…)

It’s not a one-size-fits-all either, because everyone has a different view on what to enjoy in life.

It’s about enjoying every day and avoiding the ‘as soon as’ trap (that’s when you say I will start enjoying life ‘as soon as’ I become the CEO; or ‘as soon as’ I move to that country; or ‘as soon as’ I retire, and so on …)

***
Everyday has to have an element of enjoyment. Here are few tips to do that:

1. Figure out what really matters to you. List five things (sports, socializing, seeing news places, …)

2. Drop unnecessary activities you don’t really enjoy (watch less TV,…)

3. Protect your private time. Few are so important that they need their Blackberry connected all the time

4. Accept help (baby sitter, therapist if you find stress is getting out of control, …)

5. Plan for fun and for relaxation. They are different and much better when planned.

After all, happiness is more related to ‘what we do’ rather than ‘what we have’.

*Works cited: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affluenza

Occupy Wall Street

The finance industry has attracted a big number of highly educated people to work in a low-productivity, high-destruction field. In trying to mimic science by applying things like “quantitative forecasting models”, among other bullshit stuff, top university graduates thought that they were doing sophisticated work. I guess we all know by now what they were actually doing!
I believe that our prosperity depends on ethics, science, and productivity. Corporations and media have been lip servicing about “maximizing value for shareholders”, “knowledge based economy”, and “outsourcing.”
If ethics conflicts with profit, ethics should come first. That’s for sure wasn’t the case when “toxic debts” were packaged and sold to people.
It also seems that the term “knowledge based economy” meant that financiers, instead of engineers, are the basis of this knowledge. In that case, it should’ve been labeled “liars based economy”!
I know that business gurus preached us a lot about outsourcing, but the fact is we are losing jobs to China. We now make the designs and they manufacture the products. You don’t need to be a genius to “forecast” that they will do both things very soon.

Let’s be careful with the media.Most “experts” won’t say that we need to change our broken system and those responsible of it, because it’s risky for their career to say so. They deceived us before during the internet and real estate bubbles. And they will continue to do so.
Let’s also be careful with our mindsets. They taught us that the current system gives us freedom and the chance to be rich. But we got high unemployment rate; high insecurity among the working class; and panic among the retiring segment.
We really need to change this situation. I think that Occupy Wall Street is a good try to move people and say “enough is enough”. Let’s see how it goes …

First Days

I still remember my first day at school. It was in Kuwait. My father took me in his car and drove for some time in the desert. My mother refused to come with us because she knew that I will cry a lot and will not let go of her when we reach there. I remember few things about Kuwait: the famous Kuwait towers, the beach, and my redhead friend.
I returned to Egypt, my home country, when I was 8 years old. My parents put me in a traditional English school. We had 50 pupils in each class, and 7 classes per grade. That is around 2,000 students in the elementary school building alone!
I made my first friends at this school and I am still in touch with few of them, thanks to Facebook.
In grade 11, I went to an American school. It was a new experience and I was so impressed by the positivity characterizing the American culture that I wanted to go to there for university. But my parents did not agree, so I entered the American one in Cairo!
After getting my bachelor’s degree in Psychology, I took a job with a market research firm, and got married at the same time!
***
I still remember my first day in Dubai. I was amazed by its fancy airport, wide streets, and high rise buildings. This was when I took my second job with another market research firm.
Dubai has unique demographics. It is consisted of 90% expats and only 10% nationals! Expats are mainly Indians (60%), Arabs (20%), and westerners (10%, mostly British).
It has very luxurious hotels and malls, almost every family has a full time maid, and a Mercedes S-class is as common as a Corolla in the streets.
After living there for few years, I decided to move to Canada.
***
This time I am not impressed by the infrastructure or the modern facilities, this time I am impressed by the people.
I can see people who have very important values.
They value the human being.
They value knowledge.
And they maintain optimism about the future.
But what really impressed me the most, is the down to earth attitude of the Canadians.
Canadians live in a top-ranked country in terms of living standards, yet they are not snobbish. It is a characteristic reflecting decency and good manners.
I hope that we will never lose this trait.