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I’m lucky enough to have been sent to Queensland this week for work. I am here to attend a training/conference/expo of sorts called Microsoft Tech.ed.

Upon arrival to the conference I was given a HP netbook – a HP Mini 2140 to be precise. I’m a massive geek and I love this thing (I’m typing this blog entry on it right now).

I just can’t believe how image driven Queensland is. I know everyone, everywhere is somewhat driven by image, but never before have I seen people so driven by image that their lives evolve around it. Talking to Queenslanders, watching them walk around on the streets, seeing the numerous mini trucks, heavily modified v8′s and turbo cars everywhere, not to mention people riding choppers, etc, etc – it’s just a state driven by looking good – at any cost! They are all trying to keep up with eachother, even though only few of them can afford to.

Obviously this sort of thing happens everywhere – certainly in Adelaide where I live, but just not on this scale.

While I’ve been here I’ve also had some time to catch up with my sister who lives in Queensland too. It’s been great to catch up with her, and finally meet my niece – who is just awesome.

Spending time with my sister and her family has once again reinforced my opinion that “things” and ”stuff” is just so unnecessary. I completely understand that people need their hobbies, they need their few luxuries, but at what cost?

This isn’t a dig at the state at all – it’s beautiful up here… In areas anyway. I’ve considered the idea of moving up here a fair few times now (although never seriously enough to talk with my fiancee about it). I just don’t know if I could keep up with everyone else. I really think that to survive in Queensland you need to be very career drive, have very well of parents, or be happy to live a life of eternal debt.

As I put my shoes on this morning, I realised that I was no longer dressing to look “cool” at work, but rather for my clothing to serve a purpose for the next 8 hours.

I’m not a trendy person. Unless I’m going to a wedding or something like that I rarely dress up – for me it’s a hoody, jeans and skate shoes in my day to day life. My current job allows me to wear pretty much whatever I want to work, so long as it’s tidy and as a result, I usually end up wearing a polo, jeans and skaties at work.

Over the last few months however, I have started wearing sneakers instead of skaties to work. It allows me to be more comfortable around the office, and go for longer walks at lunch. Jeans and sneakers – how very Jerry Seinfeld of me.

I have found myself thinking more about function over form in the last few years. In some ways I think it has been triggered by my commuting to work on a bike. Life is becoming more about necessity for me, rather than the luxuries, and commuting on a bike is all about that. There’s no point in having a comfortable bike to ride to work on if it weighs half a tonne and breaks all the time!

The whole “simplicity” thing is something that interests me a lot, and is something that I feel will carry over into our house when we build it one day.

With that said, I don’t have issues with people that want to look good, or care a lot about their image. I suppose everyone has their own calling in life, and we all make that judgement call on what we actually want. My only concern is whether or not these people are confident and conscious of their decisions, rather than being dragged along with the crowd into a life that they don’t enjoy.

I read an article yesterday that was just ridiculous. A 19 year old casual employee is already $42,000 in debt – the result of a car, plasma TV and an overseas holiday. While the article claims to be about how Generation Y are getting their act together financially, I’m just reading another piece of tripe by News Corp.

I’ve always had an issue with image. Not personally – as mentioned I’m a fairly resilient person, so I don’t hugely care what other people think of my lifestyle or how I look, but coming from a private school I was inevitably part of a competition to look as rich as possible, regardless of where I actually stood in the pecking order. It’s amazing how some parents push their kids out of the car in Ralph Lauren and Nautica, despite their car running on three cylinders.

Only now have I realised that a large part of a lot of males’ image is tied up with cars. I personally have had a few nice cars, and while I have never consciously bought them for the image factor, now that I think about it image is the only reason for your car to look good. While nowadays it’s easy for me to let go of that dream, I find that most Australians consider others to be “successful” dependant on how new their car is. Going on that judgement, I must be fairly unsuccessful, right?

Whether it be for a car, house, TV, boat, bike, clothes, laptop or so on – are people actually getting into debt purely just to boost their self-image? In this crazy world that we are living in, I’m a firm believer that nine times out of ten they are.

I don’t profess to be exempt from this, although I consider myself to have things under control – a good friend of mine asked the other day if I was sick of not having a car, and that “surely you could afford it”. Quite honestly, we could afford another car, but we just don’t need one at the moment – it doesn’t make any sense.

Nowadays you just don’t seem to get any kudos for paying down your loans and owning things freehold. To date I have never had a loan for a car, and only ever taken out a loan to buy our property. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I wrote an article about the Minimalist Lifestyle not too long ago, and I feel that this ties in perfectly – to me, debt means stress. It is something that will always be in the back of your mind until it’s gone. Get rid of it and it will be one less thing to think about. Be content with less, and enjoy life rather than worry about it constantly.

I was talking to a friend last Friday via email. Things were winding up for the weekend and we obviously both had time to talk.

Specifically, I mentioned having an argument with my future mother-in-law about weddings, and how my personal opinion of them is that they are a blatant waste of money, and the stress of the whole thing just erodes the actual meaning of the day. In the end, I believe that they have very little to do with the marriage, or the love that two people have for eachother, but moreso about the image that either the couple, or their parents want to portray to their friends and family. They want to be seen as the people with the really nice wedding, that “must have cost a LOT”, just in the same way that they need a nice flashy car, or a McMansion by the beach.

My ranting continued for quite sometime, as it usually does, and ended up going into the financial side of a wedding.

…fact is that the average cost of a wedding in Australia is $28,700 (or was 4 years ago.. it has probably gone up since then). The average household income is “$91,300″. In reality though, the median household income is more like $50,000 before tax. But lets say it’s $91,300. That’s $63910 after tax, assuming they are both being taxed at 30%, which they probably are.. both earning around $45k or something.

A LOT of living expenses are coming out of that figure. Chances are they’re still renting, driving two Australian made cars with poor consumption and require servicing frequently, which also drains their wallet. It doesn’t leave a whole lot of money. Most Gen Y’ers can’t save for a deposit for a house.. the government is giving them free money to get into debt which is a whole other topic which I shouldn’t get into now.

But the thing is, they just don’t have the dollars to pay for a wedding.

Now what I realised when I was explaining all this, was that there is a black and white difference between the facts, and an opinion.

When I have these “arguments” (or disagreements, or so forth), I usually end up very frustrated. I make a point of providing facts, and then afterwards explaining my opinion, which is derived from those facts. Unfortunately when I usually have these conversations though, the person I’m talking to isn’t interested in facts, only their opinion, and they have nothing to back their opinion up.

I’m happy to be told that I’m wrong, but if you’re going to do it, please have a reason why.

I don’t like to push my views on people, but from reading another blog on the internet, I have come to the conclusion that if you know something that can help others, tell them. It’s not always easy, in fact it’s very hard to be in the minority (being educated), but given a reversed role, I’d like someone to tell me if I was about to make a bad decision, or if I could do something to better my life.

The truth is in the facts.

I’ve realised that the facts are what I need to tell people, not so much my opinion. I try and drop them in everywhere now. (The rate of increase in the number of dwellings in Australia exceeded the rate of growth in the number of people in Australia by 41%. The rate of increase in the number of empty houses was 2.7 times the rate of population growth. *)

Facts are provided everywhere, and once you have verified they are in fact correct, you can make your opinion. Finance, diet, so on and so forth. There are facts, and they are all relevant for you to hold a view on the topic.

If I said to you..

“I think the healthiest way to live is to be a raw vegan, so you should be one.”

Who am I to tell you what to do?

But what if I said..

“Did you know that casein in milk has been proven to be a major cause of osteoporosis and other bone diseases in humans?”

You could then form an opinion from that fact. That opinion could be to believe it, and an action from that opinion may be to stop drinking milk.

Conspiracy theories are a perfect example of where facts can hold some vital information, but where the opinion of some presenters/producers/etc can take over and effectively turn a lot of people away from the original message that they wanted to send. Often there are facts that “the people” should know, but waking up one day and telling “the people” that “Obama is 21st century Hitler” is hardly going to go down well with the majority of people.

Stick with the facts. By all means let others know your opinion, but make sure they know it is your opinion.