- How much money do [I] need in [my] savings account to feel secure?
- How many scholarly publications so [I] want to produce this year?
- How much time with [my] friends and family feels good?
- How much recreation time do [I] want, when and how?
These are some of the most complicated questions in the book. I can't answer them all, here, but I want to take a stab at some of them.
1. How much money do [I] need in [my] savings account to feel secure?
I have what most would consider to be a very secure job. Tenure is not a job for life, but it is a guarantee of a maximum amount of process before eliminating my position, firing me. But I also grew up poor, I have internalized a great set of fears -- that I am one layoff or plant closing away from family-disintegrating stress, depression, and more.
How does this affect my sense of economic security? It inflects my choices in the spending of money. According to "current research,"
"spending choices, as oppose to absolute income, affect individual’s well-being. Van Boven and Gilovich (2003) first demonstrated that spending one’s discretionary income on life experiences, as opposed to buying material objects, leads to increased well-being"I know I make this choice, over and over again: to spend my money on experiences because memories cannot be foreclosed upon, nor can memories be taken by creditors in the case of a catastrophic health care event.
Back to the original question: I have always believed that half your annual salary in the bank is "safe." So Robeson is inviting me to consider whether I have met that standard. Or to rethink that standard, perhaps.
2. How many scholarly publications do [I] want to produce this year?
This question seems fictional to me, or maybe it feels like something I just don't understand in the same way as the author. I can't predict the number of scholarly publications I will produce in a year, anymore than I can predict the number of bullseyes I will hit when I play darts. (There are others, I understand, who are that skilled at either -- at darts or at writing scholarly publications.)
I approach this question more organically -- what kinds of projects do I want to start, with what communities and with what partners do I want to do this work, and how long (roughly) will it take me to shepherd them to completion. So my mapping is closer to a three-year map. If I want to edit this project or that project, that's a two to three year timeline. If I want to write a chapter for that book or that journal, that's a two year timeline, from the moment I start. If I want to submit a piece in a single-blind or editorial-review only forum (e.g. a response, etc.).
And I try to balance the communities I publish within. Speech-Communication is one community, Composition is another. I find that the pieces I have written for library science publications are well-cited, so perhaps I should return to publishing in that community this year -- because I have something to say, and because what I have to say seems to make a contribution.
I can't answer on these terms, but I think I should develop a better answer than I have so far.
3. How much time with [my] friends and family feels good?
That's easy: three nights a week plus whatever accidental plans emerge on weekends. I try to spend one day alone a week. I fail sometimes, with mixed consequences.
4. How much recreation time do [I] want, when and how?
This also challenges me, because so much of what I do as "work" is also play. This blog is both. Reading can be both. And it can be a significant source of tension to think that work is joy, for me, when (for example) past romantic partners or even close friends have held jobs which were purely jobs, clocking it in, and not understanding that doing my job can be more fun that seeing a movie.
How would you answer Robison's four questions?
And why only these four? Robison discourages too many questions, too many goal-guideline questions like these, because too many such questions will decrease your sense of abundance. If I had a target for "number of conferences attended" and "weeks of vacation" and so on, I would decrease my sense of abundance in life.
It may not have been intended (or intended but intentionally not articulated, but the questions Robison asks fall neatly onto Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
Physiological and safety needs are clearly mapped onto money in the bank, family and friend time maps onto love/belonging, for an academic, publications fit into both belonging (membership in the community of scholars) and esteem. And recreation and publishing both may fit into self-actualization.
Using Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to develop your own questions for increasing your perception of abundance may help you.
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