About a year ago, shortly after starting a new full-time j-o-b, I
posted a thread to reflect on that year and what I'd learned through job change. It led to a great discussion. In retrospect, I can see where I got defensive in that thread at a few points. Digging into those topics has been very helpful to me as I ponder my next steps.
A quick recap:
- In a relationship, no kids. Not likely to change but you never know where life takes you.
- Working-class background but found myself in a professional industry. I don't especially like it but I've been at it for a while because it represented a life-altering opportunity for me and perhaps others in my life. And it's better than a coal mine.
- Have been FI for a few years now. Not satisfied with life and trying to decide if RE is the next step.
- I've taken a few sabbaticals. One thing I learned - I won't be bored in RE.
One More YearAnd it's been another year. I've run my victory lap at my new employer (and started another). The days, weeks, and months just keep flying by.
Last year, I challenged myself to use my FI status for something positive, while I tested out life at GigaCorp. I told myself that in the best case, GigaCorp offers a unicorn job that brings financial comfort and allows enough freedom to seek meaning and fullfillment outside the office. I figured my worst case was that I'd run a victory lap and use my income for good. I couched it as a win-win scenario.
I hadn't really accepted that my actual worst-case scenario would be failing health or missing out on something important in life while intently focused on work.
So far it's been a mixed bag.
Accomplishments- For my industry, this really is a top employer and a great place to work. If I'm going to do what I do, this is the place to do it. Achievement.
- I increased my stache by 10% reaching 29.4x my planned expenses* or 49.6x my minimum expenses**.
- Gave financial gifts to family members that were well-received and while not life-changing, were definitely life-improving.
- Created a donor-advised fund to frontload a lifetime of charitable contributions. Using the 4% rule to make it last.
- Earmarked a completely insufficient fund for potential nursing care / college funds / whatever else may be
- Made some minor progress on a hobby project.
- Used vacation time to be close to some important people in my life.
- Outlined a very interesting post-RE project (pure passion, not gonna make money) and got my partner on-board.
* Includes the DAF as small charitable contributions are built into my budget.
** Food, housing, medical, transportation, bills. Just cover the basics (including my half of the bills) in my HCOL area.
Failures- I don't like what I do for a living. I never have really - and a big factor is, I think, the working-class vs white-collar culture shock. I also think I burned myself out at MegaCorp. Perhaps unrecoverably. Even though I solved many of the things that were off-kilter at MegaCorp by negotiating my role at GigaCorp, I cannot summon any passion for this. I consider that a failure as I had kind of hoped I would get my mojo back.
- I can't seem to carve out enough time and energy to advance the other areas of my life that deserve attention.
- My job requires me to find problems, define them, and then solve them. I am constantly building and breaking new teams. I manage people across many timezones. I am the face to our customers. I'm good at it. But it is highly-stressful and I have incorporated that stress right back into my daily existence.
- The lack of energy for my personal life extends to my professional life as well. While I'm killin' it on the main responsibilities, I'm not doing all of the "extra-curriculars" that are required to be successful.
In short, the work is better. Much better. More fullfilling. But it is demanding to the exclusion of so much else. Some of my colleagues seem to make it work but in the few cases where I've had the opportunity to look under the covers, they don't seem to have it figured out any better than I do.
So I try not to compare.
Financial StatusI don't want to get into numbers here, but my planned annual spending is below the median household income in the US. With my partner's spending we'd be slightly above it. For our HCOL area, our combined household spending is below the median.
My partner in life is financially responsible, likely FI. Their contributions to the household income take my planned spending from "pretty lean" to "pretty comfortable" for the area. We are renting, as home prices are out of reach if I RE. If I found myself having to do this on my own, on my current stache, I would probably opt to move to a MCOL. I consider that an unlikely risk.
The 10% I added to my stache allows me to still hit my spending targets while carving out two earmarks. Basically enough to fund 1 year of nursing home upgrades and 2 years of state school. I'm continuing to save but I'm not tracking my budget or savings rate with any rigor.
FulfillmentI've got some work to do here. I'm no longer getting a thrill out of professional achievements and I've neglected my health, my connection to others, and my non-microsoft-office skills.
- Health. Neglected.
- Relationship. Good but on autopilot.
- Family. Got some focus this year.
- Friends. Got some focus this year.
- Job. Most achievements are here.
In short, I'm dissatisfied. Dissatisfaction has been one of the defining characteristics of my life. This dissatisfaction has motivated me to accomplish a lot. But as a recurring theme I have to wonder if, in some circumstances, it may be dysfunctional.
Am I There Yet?And so here I am. One year later. One year older. Looking off the edge of a slightly higher cliff, and wondering, "What would happen if I jumped?"
So Mustachians, what do you say? Am I there yet?
edit: fixed a link