Simple Rules For Happiness
“Common sense,” the French satirist Voltaire wrote, “is not so common.”
Please allow me to introduce you to Harry Hill, a Winnipeg senior of uncommon common sense.
Last week, Hill sent me an e-mail to share his thoughts on the ongoing ‘want versus need’ conversation. He believes most of us could spend less, donate more and still live happy, full lives.
We just need to be able to distinguish between what we want and what we actually need. Hill sees few signs people are willing to sacrifice immediate gratification for long-term benefit.
They don’t understand the consequences of overspending and buying on credit, he says.
“Paying interest is like smoking cigarettes. You get nothing for your money,” the 79-year-old says crisply.
Hill set the stage for our meeting by describing himself as a man who has managed to survive his many decades without buying a cottage, a boat, a Ski-Doo or even owning a pet. He has bought only one new car in his life.
The former Air Force member and retired Transport Canada employee admits he loved sports cars, but his family of five needed a station wagon when the kids were young. He didn’t put himself into debt to buy a fancy car, too.
“You learned early that you didn’t buy things unless you had the money to pay for them,” he says during a visit Tuesday.
When we met at his Charleswood home, a place he and his wife Florence had built 30 years ago, clean laundry was flapping on the outdoor lines. The large vegetable garden was ready for planting season.
New windows have been installed on the main floor and Hill is preparing to finish the trim himself.
“You don’t say ‘who can I hire to do this’ first,” he says. “You ask, ‘how can I do this myself?’”
Hill has lived his life as people of a certain generation do. You spent what you earned and not a penny more. You didn’t run up debts. That way of thinking has vanished, he thinks, as people fall prey to relentless advertising of stuff they don’t need.
“I think the government should run a minute of warning after each ad on TV. It could say ‘if you buy this crap it will make you fat, it will give you diabetes and you’ll go broke.’”
He points with dismay at the thousands of dollars North Americans spend annually on their pets, on gala weddings for their offspring and on lavish parties to celebrate teenagers graduating from high school.
“There are good kids in high schools who take on causes and do good things,” he says. “Maybe you could get one school to forego the grad over-the-top spending and give the savings to help needy kids. They don’t need to give up celebrating, just the excess.”
His advice isn’t revolutionary. It’s no different than telling people who want to lose weight to exercise more and eat less.
That’s common sense, too — but still we have an obesity epidemic in North America.
“People are just blind to the realities,” he says. “They want to keep borrowing and spending and they don’t understand that the day might come when the banks say that’s enough and they want their money back.”
Hill was a marathon runner who took up the sport, in part, because all you need is a pair of shoes. He began running in his early 50s and ran his last half-marathon when he was 70 and had survived heart-bypass surgery.
He walks now, but still hopes to pick up his running. At 79, he’s got the appearance and attitude of a man 20 years younger.
“I never did smoke,” he says reflectively. “I made a decision I didn’t have any money for cigarettes. Best decision I made.”
He admits he’s spent more than he needs on some things. He and Florence like to travel. He’s got more tools than he’s ever going to use. He admits he likes a shot of Baileys in his warm milk at night.
But he spends what he has and is enjoying a retirement he has earned.
“I think the forces of commercialism have so overwhelmed the sensibility of young people that they think everything they want they should have. Maybe the only way to get out of this is if they all go bankrupt, have to live for five years on what they have, can’t use credit cards and figure out they can survive without whatever they see on TV.”
Will that be enough? Or are the Harry Hills and his generation the last Canadians who understand what it’s like to pay bills on time, forego interest payments and be able to delay gratification?
Any thoughts? I think we’re playing Survivor these days — but a lot of folks don’t understand it’s not a reality show.
Reprinted from the Winnipeg Free Press, Winnipeg, MB on April 30, 2008 by Lindor Reynolds.