Keeping up with the Jones'

Cup of Jo posted this article by Elizabeth Kolbert in the New Yorker.  Ironically, or perhaps fittingly, it has taken me about four weeks to read all four pages in their entirety.  It's all about time, being busy, and what we're doing with our leisure time.  I think about this a lot…think about how much time we spend getting to work; how much time we spend in jobs we don't love, that aren't productive in a sense that they help humanity, that don't satisfy us; how much time we take to save up to live in a house that we see only between the hours of 7pm and 5am, when we leave to do it all again.  I'm not saying we're all like that: some of us are lucky enough to live somewhere we love enough to warrant that commute (more on THAT soon!); some of us work at home; some of us don't work at all.  

By Becker and Rayo’s account, this insatiability is hardwired into us. Human beings evolved “so that they have reference points that adjust upwards as their circumstances improve.” 

A third group of economists challenges the Keynesian presumption that leisure is preferable to labor. Work may not set us free, but it lends meaning to our days, and without it we’d be lost.

This all comes on the back of our first home purchase in England.  We've been approved to borrow, we've saved every single penny we could (it's never enough, is it?  Do you know that in England you PAY to get a mortgage?  Nearly $2000 just to have a loan!  It's nutty!).  The survey needs to be completed now so the bank can approve the house.  It's been suggested that by the end of August, we'll be in the new home.  We're over the moon excited.

On the heels of this article, however, isn't it interesting that we've purchased a house that will add time onto our already-long journeys to work?  But the town has an idyllic sounding name (Edenbridge), is so full of small-town charm and wide open park spaces, it's hard to imagine not wanting to come home there.  So that's the newest from across the pond.  It's been a busy time, flanked with not-very-exciting (read: free) activities.  Pictures to follow once we're back in the house, perhaps to take measurements.  I hope you're having a great weekend xx