Downshifting

As I stated in a prior post, my wife and I and those associated with our Third Wave law firm are “Downshifters”.  We want to be active in our law practices, in our communities and in the lives of our friends and families, but we geared down and have exchanged the “fast lane” for the “information super highway”.  We have exchanged our long commute from suburb to city and back to the suburb with a “carpet commute” in which we get out of bed, get the kids off to school, eat a peaceful breakfast, read the paper, scan the internet, and go into our home office for a reasonable days work.  From the rat race we have attempted an about face and have sought a safe place for work and family in the privacy of our home. As one TV commercial says, “working from home has changed my life”.  It did, but working from home was just one aspect of downshifting.

“Downshifters” want to believe that time is more important than money and that it is better to work less and be happy and fulfilled than be well paid for struggling with jobs or practices that are overly stressful or unrewarding. The Trends Research Institute in New York is credited with inventing the term in 1994, but the idea was far from new I’m afraid.  Mahatma Gandhi advocated “voluntary simplicity” in the 1930s. This is a philosophy practiced by the founders of many religions, including Buddha, Lao Tse, Moses, Mohammed, Jesus Christ, as well as many wise men such as St. Francis, John Woolman, the Hinue rishis, the Hebrew prophets, the Moslem sufis, and many great artist and leaders.  To downshift means to cut out unnecessary expenditure and cultivate a simpler lifestyle with time to do more of the things you want to do, but not go to the extremes of dropping out of society or attempting self-sufficiency. Some who have gone this route say that they have been able to save a good proportion of their income, which had been spent coping with the emotional and social consequences of overachievement and maintaining a consumer lifestyle. I know that is true for my wife, Jane, and I and our family.  Downshifting has been taken up principally by middle-class professionals, such as lawyers like me and my wife.  Although the term was coined in the 1950s in describing changing gear in a car, it very much applies to the metaphors and similes of today.

Downshifting involves both inner and outer condition. It has been described as a singleness of purpose, sincerity and honesty within, as well as avoidance of exterior clutter, of many possessions irrelevant to the chief purpose of life. It means an ordering and guiding of our energy and our desires, a partial restraint in some directions in order to secure greater abundance of life in other directions. It involves a deliberate organization of life for a purpose.  It is, in short, the act of discarding possessions and activities irrelevant to a person’s or family’s main purpose.  It should go without saying, however, that different people have different purposes in life, and that what is relevant to one person or family may not be relevant to another person or family.

Lawyers, as well as other business people, are to often too ambitious for their own good and the good of their family.  I can tell you from experience all of this ambition is not necessary.  In fact, it can be detrimental to your life and family.  All lawyers and business people have to come to terms with the fact that we are not going to live forever. Therefore, we have to start living today.  Downshifting is necessary to decelerating our lives.  Won’t you join me off the fast lane.