The Five Stages of Coping With Financial Independence
The Five Stages of Coping With Financial Independence
I stumbled and I bumbled. I staggered and I sputtered. And then I fell down a hole. A dark chasm. With neither sight nor sound, debased by tactile infirmity, I reached up with both hands and came upon Kubler Ross. A rope rising to eternity beckoning with evenly placed knots. A ladder with five rungs. I tried to climb through the five stages of coping with financial independence.
Would I ever reach daylight?
Denial
First came denial.
The accountant said that ten million dollars would suffice. And hey, I thought ten million dollars would be nice. Right?
The financial advisor shook the magic eight ball he called Monte Carlo and came up with: reply hazy, try again. The next shake was more like: my sources say no!
Denial was the initial foray into the five stages of coping with financial independence. Better to deny the issue than face it head on. There was no lack of accomplices in this covert failure. Family scoffed. Friends rolled their eyes and changed the subject. Quiet voices crept around every corner.
It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be.
But it was.
And then the anger came.
Anger
Anger, wrapped in the cloak of misgivings.
I slapped the advisors hand away from my wallet. The dirty pick pocket! I scolded the accountant and lowered her station to book-keeper.
Next I scoured through years of failed investments, unsuccessful ventures, and missed money making opportunities. The if only’s took root.
- If only I had saved more.
- If only I had invested better or curtailed the hedonism.
A fruitless struggle for one who has already reached the desired destination. Better to bargain. Better to explain away.
And then bargaining caused the anger to calm to a slow burn.
Bargaining
The most silly rung of the five stages of coping with financial independence. I tried to bargain myself out of the reality of my financial freedom.
Maybe I set my SWR too high? If I changed to 3%, then I would still have a few more years. Wouldn’t that be safer?
The one more year syndrome morphed into the first year phenomenon, morphed into just another reason not to stop working. Then I developed a ridiculous love affair with side hustles. I called them lazy to make the outrageous bargaining even more facile. I even endured the side hustle shuffle. Moving from side gig to side gig as if I was broke. As if I had no concept of enough.
Which led to depression.
Depression
The pit in which to climb out of. The emptiness left from the rabid beast of the money mind meld. Blinded by a lifetime of creating, it became hard to settle with the simplicity of just being. Depression, the fourth step of coping with financial independence, is not just a thing some random on Reddit is struggling with.
I repeatedly whispered to myself.
May you never reach your dreams. May you never stop striving. Not only to fail forward but to keep failing.
There is triumph in failure.
The great rumble of the underdog phenomenon bubbling into consciousness.
The sweet nip of success is easy to imbibe but ever so ephemeral.
Tired. So tired. I came to acceptance.
Acceptance
Mighty acceptance. The last rung that thrusts out of the pit and ushers the warming streams of sunlight. Gratitude and kindness. Community and engagement.
Full-time becomes part-time. Part-time becomes an occasional consulting gig. Minutes become lazy hours of to do lists around the house, books to read, and children to pick up from school.
The Vanguard app becomes jealous because of underuse. Rebalancing can wait till a rainy day. The condo can sit vacant for a month or two.
Wonderous acceptance.
Until…
The market crashes.
A new exciting job offer arises.
A bigger house comes on the market.
And then falling. Falling.
Falling back into a pit of denial.
And the process begins all over again.
Screw the eight ball Lol! If 10 million doesn’t cut it, most of us are screwed! But i like that, the journey of life is a never ending process, even with money we go through cycles, one moment we are up…. and then we are down.
I’m working on not logging into vanguard that much…. maybe when i hit a couple million lol
I was amazed that someone told me I need 10 million. That’s a lot of money.
One more year turns into one more decade….
I hard set a year long ago irrespective of a number. Then again my number will be up long before that year. We’ll see.
Best of luck!
Definitely some first world problems Doc G. Lol. Well as I have progressed in my financial journey I have actually come to grips and actually lowered my initial target goal. When I first started out I shot for 5 million (because it just sounded like a decent number). According to SWR even a conservative 3% withdrawal would pull $150k/yr. But as I read more, especially the article that states 90k/yr is the maximum happiness for salary amount, I thought I could certainly have an amazing retirement lifestyle with 90-125k/yr draw. I’m trying to do that with a 3% withdrawal on my assets not related to my primary home. Pretty much knocking on the door as we speak.
It sounds like you have a good plan. Almost there!
You do need to accept something… And that something is that you are doing it right!
You are doing fine! Trust the process and trust yourself.
And keep slapping those pesky hands from your wallet!
TPP
Thanks TPP. Always happy for the vote of confidence.
In the end time conquers all
Very true! Over contemplation perhaps?
You are born with a finite amount of human capital to expend. Once spent you’re dead. You spend decades (note decades = a measure of time) of your capital constructing a money machine to take over the pesky part of providing security. Correctly indexed once the money machine is built you would spend the remainder of your human capital engaged in freedom. Incorrectly indexed you would turn around and rebuild the money machine because your good at money machine building. In the mean TIME the human capital continues to be spent. Time conquers all. One day I woke up and understood my money machine was built.
Dang it. Gasem beat me to my point again. Docs are great at the “money making”. Once our colleagues figure out that they messed up their finances, it rarely takes them more than a decade or less to redirect the ship properly again.
Gasem beats most of us to the punch. And he’s a lot funnier too.
All you peeps are working i have an unfair advantage
Mo money mo problems. That’s why I like reading physician finance blogs. Physicians have a unique financial situation. Lazy side hustles? Sorry, I don’t know if there is a cure for that doc. It might be a condition you just have to live with 😉
Yep, doubt I’ll give up the lazy side hustles.
I never made a seven figure salary when I had a JOB, not even quite half of that but I did pretty well at the end of my slightly early retired career. But after I left the 9 to 5 I got a number of unsolicited job offers that paid really well and then I got an offer for a seven figure job. I knew my decision to retire was sound when it only took me 15 seconds to ponder what making over a million dollars a year would be like, before I smiled and told the recruiter, no thanks, I’m good! So I don’t think I’m going to ever get tempted to jump back into the wash, rinse and spin dry cycle again!
Wow 15 seconds. A seven figure offer would give me pause.