Free-Range Living

People bio-diversity------?

 Investigation into rural entrepreneur's objectives showed a wide range, of which profit making, whilst being important, is just one, social, personal and environment priorities also showing up strongly, a finding in line  with pyschologists' identification of a wide multi-dimensional range of human needs rather than just a limited dimensional money making focus. The study in question pointed to the fact that money making was indeed important, but that at a certain 'financial sufficiency' level, the dynamics changed and priorities switched to other areas, such as social, environmental and/or personal need areas. One of the 'problem' areas with money might be its potentially considerable 'conditioning', 'narrowing' effect, inducing such truisms such as ‘people only work for money'.
In a 'carrot and stick' 'control' culture such as appears to be the norm in the UK currently, so much emphasis can end up being placed on, say, 'work for reward' that people can presumably become 'conditioned by the system' to respond to it, aided by other cultural truisms such as have been heard in recent times, such as 'greed is good', although presumably there must remain the issue of whether such a one-dimensioned cultural approach then clashes with other cultural key areas such as 'social efficacy'- ? 

Leadership lapses----?

In older pre relentlessly-entrepreneurial days, phenomena such as 'leadership' and 'self-motivation' featured, both, though, presumably made redundant in a modern culture seemingly dedicated to central micro-management, control and the non-motivationary 'carrot and stick' management style. One recent broadsheet article recently put forward the idea that teacher unrest and strike actions were as much about diminished status and responsibility under such a 'control' culture, with its plethora of rules, regulations and directives diminishing professional autonomy and obviating individual's self-motivation (and self-creativity) – not maybe the best news for self-responsible, thinking-for-themselves 'freeranger' types. 

It may yet not then be 'all about money'.  On the other hand, if there is little chance for personal motivation, professional autonomy, individual creativeness and initiative within jobs; or the work has been reduced to robot-like repetitive actions, then perhaps money then remains the only significant return from the work, in itself then strengthening the conditioning effect of it. Again, not the best ‘freeranger’ territory, maybe.

Sometimes the 'carrots' seem these days mind-blowingly big, enough maybe to turn most heads. Again, in older times, the conventional wisdom was that if you embarked on a significant 'carrot' track, you were in the process conditioning people to expect such 'extra' reward for their efforts, and that the 'motivation' effect (i.e. getting people to make productive work efforts) was short-term, requiring on-going and further 'tranches' of ever-increasing rewards to evoke efforts.

The longer-term result was in effect spiralling costs for (longer-term) similar effort levels, which was deemed to be 'a path of folly'. The preferable and longer-term more efficient path was then to create engaging and responsible work situations allowing autonomy, self-responsibility and self-motivation opportunities, together with appropriate and fair material rewards (generally via salaries), capable then of giving a multi-dimensional satisfaction of needs to people, rather than a more single-dimensioned focus on just material returns.

‘La bonne vie’-----
 
One ‘freeranger’ couple eschewed modern ‘mass’ life early on, deeming it to be too one-dimensionally lacking in ability to cater for their diverse needs and areas of satisfactions. They were able to acquire six and a half acres of ground (approx two and threequarters hectares) with a mobile home, which by woodlining it inside and out, complete with wood cooking and heating range, they converted into a snug and magical chalet in which to live with their two daughters. The whole place was a peaceful idyll, with the chalet nestling up against their own wood (their source of free fuel), within an inner sanctum of two hedgelined fields and accessed by two gates – very hard not to be affected by the natural beauty and the calming 'vibes' from the site.

A rural idyll indeed but complete with practical needs and not without challenges over the thirty plus years they ran their independent, ‘freeranger’ lives. Veg was ‘biologically’ (i.e. no chemicals used in production) grown on just under an acre, which was then transported by bike trailer to be sold via a market stall in a small local town – who said small independent enterprise is inefficient and redundant? No machines were involved at all, with veg seeds, a small amount of domestic products and the occasional hand tool being the main items of expenditure, meaning that this couple had a chosen, largely stress-free and fulfilling lifestyle with a viable yearly cash economy of around, at an educated guess, of under £10k. Not a modern ‘cup of tea’ for sure, and 'poverty stricken according to offical classification, but nevertheless a very successful set-up to meet their particular bio-diverse set of needs. ( A fuller description of this 'freerange' lifestyle enterprise can be found in the 'Freerange Living' e-book from this website).

Money, for them, was a means rather than an end; a fulfilling, engaging and satisfying lifestyle- they were great nature lovers, for instance – being the important life goal. Maybe their case points to the possibility that chasing the money might then be ‘putting the cart before the horse’? Take running a business, for instance. Making the prime business goal as ‘giving a good deal and service to the customer’ (rather than, for instance, ‘making big profits’) might pay off in the longer-run via true repeat business and recommendations, which then can deliver longer-term ‘profit security’, as well of course offering potentially higher levels of 'human' satisfaction for all concerned. One small building outfit hereabouts , for instance, survived an economic downturn quite well, their customers finding work for them to help them out, whereas a larger, more ‘commercially’ orientated outfit hit problems.

Money, in a money world and a materially-based society is obviously an important and needed component. Could, though, too much emphasis and focus on it and its generation, given its acknowleged potentially strong conditioning effect, run a risk of narrowing vision down too tight a track, leading to difficulty then gaining the wider view.

 As an older, weatherbeaten west-country farmer once remarked;

 'I reckons this about money, me boy. Tis a good servant, but it be a bad master!' 

    Who knows, maybe this just hits a nail on the head - ?