Closing The Loop

Writing this blog has been a journey.  A journey in which I have grown incrementally.  Not only inner change, but outward also.  I have started the process of cleaving my identity and purpose away from medicine and towards something else.  Writing.  Communication.  Public speaking.  I couldn’t have even begun to consider this journey if I was not financially independent.  I wouldn’t have been able to afford it. But even more, I couldn’t have traveled these roads nor come to these conclusions without writing my thoughts down on a regular basis for others to read.   Today I am closing the loop.

I have come full circle from my first blog post.  I started this blog by writing about irony and life insurance.  The first step towards changing my pathway was cancelling my life insurance policy.  An ironic action given my father’s life insurance paid for my medical school education.  But I am not my father.

And thus a transformation began.  It’s started with words and has ended in actions.

I have come full circle, I am closing the loop.

So what has writing almost daily posts done for me?

Clarity

At the beginning of this journey, I knew that I was unhappy with the current state of my life but wasn’t ready yet to take action.  One of my very first posts, the wall of fear, documented how frozen I was.  I knew the math. I understood what financial freedom sounded like.  Yet, I was far from feeling free.

Writing everyday brought me clarity.  It helped me flesh out not only my ideas but also my emotions.  I could point to why I felt that we are kidding ourselves with the safe withdrawal rate, and ponder the three distinct roads that were taken by three brothers.  I was closing the loop.

Over the months as my writing progressed, so did my resolve.  I was no longer leaping before I looked into an abyss.  I was leaping into my future.

Accountability

Showing up everyday and parsing my thoughts out into the ether not only clarified my true beliefs, but created a daily diary of accountability.  My words, once released on the internet, became tiny little promises.  Promises not only to my readers but more importantly to myself.

By publishing my thoughts, I was giving myself permission to stand by them.  I could no longer talk the talk without walking the walk.  This helped me redefine my fears of failure.  In this new world, failing was not being the kind of proof of concept I was writing about.  Failing was not being accountable for my words.

It was no longer some deranged mix of financial calculations that would define whether I had some odd concept of enough.

I am closing the loop.  First clarity.  Then accountability.  And now action.

Support

A wondrous side effect of this blogging adventure is that somewhere in the middle I developed a community.  A community of like-minded, warm, and caring people that have made this all doubly worthwhile.  I never knew how much I was missing community until I developed one.

I now not only feel accountable to myself but also my friends and readers.  Instead of being stressful, this actually feels good.  Because It strangely feels like failure just isn’t failure when surrounded by so much support.

Final Thoughts

I started this blog because finding financial independence made me feel lost.  At a crossroads in my life, I was trying desperately to let go of an identity and purpose that had proven toxic, and embrace a new one.

I have come full circle.  I am closing the loop.  Blogging has taken me from clarity, to accountability, all the way to action.

And somewhere in the middle I developed the support and courage to continue on.

This is far from the ending.

It is a new beginning.