There is a crossover point where, one year you feel like you are working for money and working to add as much of it to the 'stache as possible, then the next year you take your foot off the gas and the 'stache grows as fast if not faster than it did when you were working so hard. The year after that, the process accelerates further and you realize that working is optional.
That's when I first felt really 'rich'. Before that, I pretty much felt (and looked) poor.
I think there is a binary way of thinking that many of us engage in - we're either financially independent or we're not. And if we're not, then we feel either poor or insecure or some combination of the two. Even if we're $100k richer this year than we were last year, if we haven't reached our FI number yet we worry about all sorts of things. Am I saving enough? Am I earning enough? What would happen if I lost my job or suffered a huge pay cut? But I don't know if reaching FI gets rid of the uncertainty or if we just trade one set of worries for another. Instead of worrying about a job loss, will I then worry about a medical emergency wiping out a huge chunk of my savings? Or about the stock market collapsing?
So much of life is a crap shoot. I feel like I just need to get better at living with uncertainty. Maybe I should take more risks now instead of always playing it safe (i.e. continuing to work a well-paying job that doesn't suit me) even if it screws up my target FI date. I've always said I wanted to move near the water and live in a place where it's warm enough to play golf year round. Yet I'm nearly 40 years old and I haven't gotten any closer to my warm-weather destination because I'm afraid of taking any risks that would jeopardize my early retirement dreams.
Once I did the math and realized when I could retire, it was almost as if I told myself that it would be the end of the world if I didn't become financially independent by that date. Every decision I make is done with my FI goal in mind. As a result, I feel like I'm just settling for a life that doesn't really make me happy in the hopes that eliminating the need to earn an income will make me happy. And yet I could lose my job tomorrow as part of a corporate restructuring and that could seriously interfere with my plans. But maybe that would be the kick in the ass I need to start really living. It might be a freeing experience for me. On some level, I think I almost want to get laid off just so I could experience the excitement and adventure of starting over in a new town with a new job. Sounds crazy, right?
And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out
the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then,
but that's no matter -- to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . and one fine morning ----
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
