Last week I had coffee with a mate who has just been made redundant, and our conversation made me realise how much my priorities have changed since the economy turned south.
If you had asked me this time last year what was most important to me, I might’ve said my house, my car, my relationship or my family. These days, without a shred of doubt in my mind, I can say my most important and critical asset is my job.
It’s not that I haven’t valued my job until now, but that I’ve never really experienced uncertainty. Since my enlightening coffee, I’ve been talking about this shift in focus with some other friends and colleagues and it seems most of us are more conscious of the importance of employment.
Without a regular pay cheque, my existence as I know it would probably fall down like a house of cards. Two mortgages, a car loan and a number of regular bills consume most of my income, so I’d be in a pickle if it was to suddenly disappear.
But talking to my friend, I realised these uncertain times have made most of us consider more than money. “It’s about stability and security,” he said. And I reckon he’s right.
We all need money to make our worlds go around, but we probably also want to be able to get a sound night’s sleep too.