The way down or the way to yourself: the pros and cons of downshifting

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-12 17:37

The Western term "downshifting", which in recent years has become so popular in our country, means a voluntary refusal from work (often highly paid), which takes a lot of time and effort, in favor of a quiet free life "for oneself." Downshifters, as a rule, change office offices for residential apartments or country houses, prefer to work from home or be closer to nature, doing farming. However, it is not uncommon for people to simply go down the career ladder, freeing up the executive chair to take the place of a simple office worker. High wages are not the main motivation for downshifters. It is more important for them to realize that they are doing what they want, while managing to live outside the walls of their company.

There are different opinions about the motives that induce people to quit their careers overnight. Someone supports downshifters and believes that only by realizing the true value of life, which is not at all in money, traffic jams and a schedule from 8 to 19, you can become happy and find harmony with yourself and the world around you. Others are convinced that downshifting is nothing more than an escape from the difficulties that arise in the path of any person who wants to advance from an ordinary clerk to a big boss.

Be that as it may, but the number of downshifters in our country is growing rapidly every year. Usually, people are overwhelmed by the feeling that life is passing by, around the age of 30. It is during this period that most careerists already have time to work and achieve certain successes, and also wonder why these successes are needed and whether they make them happy.

Such thoughts, as a rule, are prompted by fatigue, chronic stress, emergency work. In the end, a person simply ceases to understand why he spends 2-4 hours in transport every day, stays up late in the office, if he does not even have time to enjoy what he is working for - success in his career and a full life outside the office.

It would be wrong to say that downshifting is a panacea for all ills. Like any new and rather controversial phenomenon, it has its pros and cons.

Downshifting pros

1. Finding harmony. A job filled with constant time trouble, quarrels with bosses and gossip from colleagues is a serious stressful factor. Being in a state of intense tension, a person simply cannot perceive life as capable of bringing happiness and peace. It is this - harmony with oneself and the world around them - that most office employees lack. Quite often downshifting leads to the fact that yesterday's clerks become calmer, begin to look at life positively.

It is this - harmony with oneself and the world around them - that most office employees lack.

2. Self-realization. It happens that a person is not satisfied with his job solely because he chose the wrong profession. It is very difficult to get a talented artist or writer to enjoy the path of an accountant. And many school graduates, under the pressure of their parents or because of ignorance of what exactly they want to do, enter universities for specialties, which they then hate all their lives. Years pass, a person realizes what he is drawn to, talents are revealed, and a hated position appears in the work book. There is only one way out - to leave the race and start another path - the one that you like.

3. Health promotion. Stress has not yet brought anyone to good. On the contrary, they take away health more than any diseases, because they often become their causes. Dissatisfaction with life generates stress, a person gets sick and, in an effort to preserve what cannot be bought for any money, gives up nervous work in order to devote more time to himself. Begins to eat right, play sports, give up bad habits. Of course, not everyone does this, but for the most part people who care about their mental state do not disregard the physical.

Cons of downshifting

1. Lack of understanding of others. Still, we are accustomed to thinking that the goal of life is a successful job and that you can only work in the office from call to call for a certain monthly amount of money. Therefore, the aspirations of the downshifter, who suddenly decided that neither office, nor money, nor success matter to him, is a reason to condemn him. Like, you can regret it, but anyone would be happy to be in your place, but you do not appreciate what life has given you, but what if you find yourself at a broken trough, etc. Basically, as if paradoxical it didn’t sound, in such cases people condemn those who act as they would like to do, but due to some circumstances do not dare to do it.

People condemn those who do what they would like to do, but due to some circumstances do not dare to do it.

2. Decrease in the level of income. In fact, a person who has decided that he will do something completely different, radically different from the previous kind of activity, can achieve even greater success. Especially on condition that now he fills life with a work that brings pleasure. But the nuance is that in this beloved business, you will have to start everything from scratch, which means that for some time you will not be able to afford everything that you could have acquired and received earlier, while holding a leading position in a large company.

3. Feeling disconnected from the world. Downshifters who prefer the wilderness to noisy metropolitan areas first enjoy silence and self-discovery. But then many of them understand that the world is not only four walls around and a beautiful pond outside the window, the world is other people, interesting events, the feeling that you are in a team, etc. That is why many downshifters return there. from where they fled.