It’s Not About Money
It’s Not About Money
I know you think that’s it’s about money. It’s not about money. I thought it was. In the beginning. When I was tired of the everyday hustle and looking for a way out. Financial independence filled the void. If I could just save, invest, and build income streams then all would be well. I could plot graphs, measure compounding, and guesstimate returns. The pathway was simple and clear.
A pathway to what? A more difficult question. We say we want to be free, but then we don’t really know what that means. Free to do what?
Travel? Watch TV? Visit with friends and family?
Financial Independence is Sorta Irrelevant
Well, not exactly irrelevant. It is the minimum required. The cost of entrance. That’s right, it is not the ultimate goal but rather the first step. You cannot find freedom or contentment if you are forced to spend a majority off your hours doing work that you find completely unfulfilling.
Getting to the minimum takes thought and concentration. There is a learning curve traversed by hours of reading and listening to podcasts. A learning curve that can start out as highly gratifying, but always threatens to push its ugly torso right smack dab into the middle of purpose.
Money can become purpose, but then we fall down the rabbit hole of the money mind meld.
And we know it’s not about money.
Autopilot
The goal is to have your finances on autopilot. Each month money goes in and money comes out. Investments gain and compounding occurs. It is like the forever ebb and flow of endless river. Always moving forward, unconcerned with all the excitement occurring on either shore.
The point is not to retire early or to never monetize.
The point is that those things happen as a byproduct. An unintended consequence. A happy coincidence.
It’s not about money because money ultimately isn’t the stuff of happiness. it is the minimum requirement. The cost of entrance.
The ticket to the big show.
Purpose
It’s about purpose. And identity. And connection. Whatever those things mean to you. I know what they mean to me. It has taken forty odd years and lot’s of failure to get there. But I continue to progress. We all continue to progress.
Can you embrace that progress? Can you cope with the fact that your unique purpose, identity, and connections may change drastically over the years?
That’s Ok. It’s called evolution.
You evolve when you accept that this is an uphill battle where you lose more than you win. And in the end you might only have a modicum, a small inkling, of what your true purpose is.
That’s OK too.
It’s not about money. No one on their death-bed ever lamented that their bank account wasn’t just a few cents higher. They mourned over dreams unfulfilled, relationships gone awry, and loves lost. But they don’t bemoan their financial situation.
Not at the very end.
Evolution
If we are lucky, we evolve. If we started on this path to financial independence because we wanted to have enough money, then hopefully we have ended in a much different place. A place where financial freedom was the first stepping stone to something much better. Much greater.
It’s not about money. It’s about life.
What are you evolving too?
What plans will being financial independent help you fulfill?
How will you fill the void when you can no longer stuff money down into it?
I like the way you think Doc G. FI is the entrance ticket to the smoke screen of acceptance to who you are when it is inherently no longer about what you do.
Yep. A smoke screen is a great way to put it.
I think of money as a tool like you do. It is not automatically going to make you happy. If you are miserable person by nature all that money will do is make you a rich miserable person.
People can be happy at any level of wealth if they are content with what they have. Studies have shown that the max level of happiness is around a 90k/yr income.
The question is why then does it become such a huge goal for us.
I’ve always been a pay as you go type. When I was in college I had 2 jobs and a side gig and came out with 3 degrees and no debt. My reward was the knowledge I acquired. I dug knowing stuff. The money was merely a subsidy. I went into engineering, got a second job teaching electronics at a community college. I audited grad courses in physiology at the local University and played in a rock and roll band. I had access to a recording studio and taught myself to be a recording engineer in the off hours when the studio was empty. My engineering job paid my bills, my teaching job allowed me to invest, and the rest paid me nothing except in the knowledge and life experience I obtained. This was before John Bogel started Vanguard. There were no Bogelheads.
Prior to med school I had no intention of becoming a physician. I took the MCAT and scored very high so I applied and got in. In my interview the guy asked me why I wanted to be a Dr, and I told him I thought I had the skillset to succeed, I knew I would be a physician for somebody, I didn’t have to be a physician for everybody. In med school I got a side gig teaching Kaplan MCAT courses to pre-meds. Interests rates went to 18% and inflation went to 12% so when I ran out of money second year. I had saved enough for 4 years but the inflation creamed me. (a note to retiree’s regarding inflation). I went down to the Naval base raised my right hand and became Ensign Gasem. I came out of med school debt free with a 2 year service commitment. I did my commitment and moonlighted on the side and stuffed the money into the market. All of those things propelled my life forward. My jobs were integral. They subsidized my existence. The were not my existence. They also informed my existence.
I don’t see FI as anything but a way to subsidize your existence. It provides a ready source of hamburgers. It is not life changing. Work is life changing. Study is life changing. Engaging is life changing. Family is life changing. I suppose if you won 1.6 billion bucks that would be life changing. You would have to hire a small army to protect you and your family, and live behind a large fence on some compound somewhere. Money has it’s downside too.
It is not life changing. Work is life changing. Study is life changing. Engaging is life changing. Family is life changing.
Yes. Well said.
Love this, Doc! It’s not about stuff or money. It’s funny because when I got out of debt and became interested in investing I couldn’t wait to start a blog and chronicle my journey. More times than not, I find myself writing about recovery, habits, healing, freedom, mindfulness, and intentionality. Sure money is affected by all of these things but I’ve found that once I automated my savings I get to focus more on living life.
Yep. The money becomes secondary.