We FI Like We Lived

There Is Nothing We Can Do

I think we FI like we lived pre FI.  Let me explain.

I have spent a good deal of these last few years being a medical director of a hospice.  There is no greater privilege than helping people navigate what can be the most difficult path they traverse in life.  I’m talking, of course, about death.  Nothing bristles more than to hear a doctor say, I’m sorry Mr Jones, there is nothing more we can do.   So far from the truth, true doctoring means helping people die with dignity and comfort just as much as it means curing pneumonia and treating heart failure.  There are so many ways we can palliate the dying process.

But there are natural limits.  While we can treat pain and anxiety, give comfort and care, there is no path to change a person’s basic nature.  Happy people tend to have calm, light-hearted deaths.  Anxious people tend to be anxious up to the end.  And angry people, well let’s just say you don’t want to be anywhere near that room.

In other words, people tend to die like they lived.

Similarly, I think we also tend to live out our post Financial Independence life similar to our pre freedom days.

We FI like we lived.

We FI Like We Lived

I know what you’re thinking.

Bull crap!  Right?

You were working a horrible job before FI.  Burning the midnight oil.  Stressing and having ulcers.  Then You FIREd and quit your job and poof!  All the stress is gone.  You hang out in your pajamas all day and play video games!

I think not.

The financial independence mindset is one of innovation, deliberation, and planning.

You might have dropped your W2, but are you scouting out a new rental property?  Has that side hustle all the sudden started to take up more time and create more revenue?  Is your blog sitting on the powder keg waiting for the dynamite to blow.

You were an innovator and a hustler before you retired.  You will be an innovator and a hustler after.

We tend To FI like we lived.

Personality Doesn’t Change

Some of us are a little obsessive-compulsive.  Others are  restless and aggressive.  We are happy and sad, playful and morose, strong and weak.  These things don’t change just because we have reached financial independence.  Our ability to adapt to new circumstances is profound.  You have heard of hedonic adaption.  Well there is also such thing as contentment adaption.

After a period the novelty of Financial Independence wears off. You eventually revert to your old self, and your old habits, both good and bad.

We FI like we lived.

The Silver Lining

The main difference, of course, is freedom.  You will probably not stop working.  You will not stop innovating.  But you will stop doing these things for someone else.  You will become your own boss, and work on your own time frame.  Maybe you’ll blog from abroad, or manage your properties from the beach.  You might spend all day with the kids, and fulfill your Etsy orders after midnight.

The true joy of financial independence is freedom.  It is the light at the end of the tunnel, the warm cup of hot coco after a harsh morning of shoveling mounds of snow.

But you will still have personal demons to face.

Financial Independence won’t fix that!