Hi ,

I recently visited home for my dads 75th birthday and visited a local haunt that Bhavika and I used to frequent when we lived there.

This place opens up in the morning and serves a traditional breakfast, of a coconut based lentil curry with a local made bread along with tea. Dev, the person running this little place, has always been in his old short pants and shirt since the time we first visited it.

The same paint on the walls, the same benches, the same fans, the same service, and to me the most important of all the same consistent taste of the food. Something that you can count on, the tea and the food tastes exactly the same for over a decade now.

The price you pay is literally peanuts, yet Dev doesn't seem unhappy, he doesn't want to scale up nor does he want more. The state I'm from Goa has a cultural term called Susegad, it stands for a relaxed, laid-back attitude towards life that supposedly runs in our blood.

Yet on the other hand Arjun, the owner that ran a similar setup at that time, now has a fancy place, and has even expanded to another village and scaled up. He's making more money for sure, but I had a question for him, has your stress levels increased? He said, this is far more taxing, I have no peace, I'm up from 5.30 to 10.30 running about, when it was a one-man show I was free.

How much money is worth your time, your stress, what are you paying for more, could you be content with less?

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