Hey Young World
Hey Young World
I was a child of the eighties. Like many of my peers, life lessons not only came from school and our parents, but also from the rarefied lyrics of rap music. There were so many great political artists at that time. Public Enemy, 
Boogie Down Productions, NWA. The list goes on and on. Although crass, violent, and often misogynistic, the words were interlaced with culture, struggle, and vibrant messages. I remember a song in particular, Hey Young World, by Slick Rick.
In this classic, Slick gave advice to the next generation.
This rap here… it may cause concern it’s
broad and deep… why don’t you listen and learn
Love mean happiness… that once was strong
But due to society… even that’s turned wrong
Times have changed… and it’s cool to look bummy
and be a dumb dummy and disrespect your mummy
Have you forgotten… who put you on this Earth?
Who brought you up right… and who loved you since your birth?
There is so much good here. Rick sees that the younger generation is getting caught up in sex, drugs, and bad behavior. He wants to take all he has learned and ease the path to success.
Slick’s On To Something
I’ve watched with great enthusiasm as the median age of financial independence seekers dives lower and lower. There are even a few kids coming out of college who are not only aware of the movement but already making their way in the world.
Wow! How ahead would all of us have been if we understood investing, saving, and compound interest at that age? Would I have ever worked for someone else? How efficient could my life have become? I probably would have hit my number many years earlier. And better yet, I would have had the requisite knowledge and vocabulary to have known it.
Hey Young World is a song of warning, of redemption. It made me think about what mistakes I made, as well as, words of wisdom I can pass on.
So here it goes.
Hey Young FI, The World Is Yours
Don’t be afraid to work for the man. Soak up corporate America. Be the drone who enters the office early every morning and leaves late. Get bogged down in process and go to as many meetings as required. Master the ins and outs, the inefficiency, and how business is being practiced today. Divine what works and what doesn’t. You will rub shoulders with those who know how to slice through the fat and gets things accomplished.
When you are older, and work for yourself, this knowledge will be invaluable. You might be a client of big business, or they might be yours. You will not be sorry for the understanding forged in pain you suffered at the beginning of your career.
There Is No Shame In Paying For Education
The Young FI world seems bent on taking the less traditional pathway.
You don’t need a big university. Hell, you don’t even need college at all now a days. Yet, there is no shame in spending the 100K-200K to go to a top ranked school and get a prestigious degree. The friends you make will likely become titans of the business world one day. It will not have hurt to have the same University behind your name. Nor the same experiences.
There is nothing wrong with becoming an academic, or a professional. Doctors, lawyers, and accountants can do very well.
Don’t be afraid to make money. Lot’s of it. There are many roads to China. We all have to save a large portion of our income and learn how to invest. It’s much easier to do this adequately when you have a big yearly W2.
Ditch Work/Life Balance
Hey young world. You are young. At twenty-two years old it is ok to work 16 hours a day, pull all nighters, and spend weekends at the office. This is an immense opportunity to grow and achieve. When else are you going to learn what it feels like to be stretched from all ends? Throw yourself into something audacious and abandon all else (for a little while).
You will be amazed at how much you grow. Do it at least once. You have a long career ahead of you. Find out what it really feels like to dig in.
Use Your Dreams of FI to Create, Not Escape.
My generation got it all wrong. Financial independence was a place to escape to. A superpower to shield us from the humdrum existence of W2 indentured servitude. Instead, many of us should have taken a different path.
Use your dreams of FI to build and create your perfect post FI life. Imagine the work you would do if you didn’t need money. Then, for god sakes, do it now.
Don’t wait for FI to be happy. Life is too short to postpone being in the here and now.
In Conclusion
Hey young world, the world is yours.
Or as Rick says..
So be more mature… and kids do your chores
Make your own money… hey, be proud that’s yours
You know why, cause that’s a man… that’s brains no spite
Stayin out of trouble… when it comes in sight
And a man never loses a fight… in God’s sight
Cause righteous laws are overdue
And this is a message that the Ruler Rick threw
And it’s true
This new generation of financial independence enthusiasts is stronger, smarter, and more energetic than the majority of us old guys.
Yet, we still have a little experience to pass on!
Great stuff, Doc G.
I completely agree with the sentiment that the older FI crowd was looking for an escape hatch most of the time.
I encourage all of my residents that becoming FI means you will be a better doctor. You will have the ultimate autonomy and satisfaction at work. You can choose to practice medicine and to choose to practice it how you want.
All of that means that you can stay in the job and become the doc you always wanted to be. It provides freedom and perspective.
And I am all about some old school rap, too.
TPP
It’s sad, the politics and thoughtfulness of old school rap have fallen away in today’s music.
I think that theres still some around, but it’s definitely a whole lot less common.
Use Your Dreams of FI to Create, Not Escape
That is a great line!!!
I think we focus so much on the escape part. maybe it’s not healthy.
Good advice to the young docs and everyone else for that matter about to enter the work force.
It is amazing how there are more and more 20 somethings not only already aware of the fire moment but actually have already done the RE component.
I agree that when you are younger you have the energy to do more and this can lead to invaluable experience that would serve later on in life.
You have to FI first to RE. One step at a time!
Very timely post as many students are graduating and readying themselves for the real world. The world is their oyster and the future is in their hands. The optimist in me believes the future is bright. 🙂
Me too! The younger generation is smarter than us, they just need some experience!
I’m a generation older, a product of the 1960’s, with enough assets to retire in two months, though I could have done it earlier but didn’t. One of the very real downsides of too much independence, the ability to walk away in a moment, is that you might actually exercise that freedom, which is sometimes really the illusion of freedom. The 1960’s and into the 1970’s were a different era. We had hippies in a relentless pursuit of their maximum gratification. We had fear that the economy would leave us behind, an incentive to work hard to get admission to select universities and professions, but also to perhaps not use that success in the best way, creating a protected affluent class and an unprotected cohort who for whatever reason never got their financial independence, holding the bag when the successful of us who now run things downsized them or took their benefits away.
One of the irreplaceable gratifications of dealing with patients and their illnesses has been the diversity of people who come to the office, some at the social margins, some who made it big time. And at work, we encounter the Chief of Whatever and the hospital plumber, with an expectation of equal courtesy to each of them. This has nothing whatever to do with seeking autonomy and everything to do with finding that your efforts have value wherever you are. That was the message in that era, a harder message to maintain now where we encounter a lot of Miss Piggy’s announcing c’est moi. Financial independence may bring freedom, but that’s probably not the real source of professional gratification for doctors or for anyone else.
I like, Richard, how you described medicine. It is true, as health care professionals we interact with all walks of life. It is a pure joy and pleasure to see value in each and every one of them.