You Must Expand

You Must Expand

I returned from vacation to what should not have been a great surprise. This was my first vacation since starting half retirement. My schedule is better. My stress is almost gone. Not a worry in the world, right? Except that, as always, I walked into a whirlwind of activity. Meetings to make up. Mail to sort. Bills to pay. The world didn’t slow down just because I have started making my way towards early retirement. No matter how great my schedule becomes, there will always be pain points. Happiness is not all about mitigating pain. It will always be there. Instead, if you truly seek contentedness, you must expand.

Money Is The Easiest Part

Well, not easy exactly. But simple. There is a simple path to wealth (Thanks JL!). You can argue the semantics. Maybe not everybody can make it to financial independence. But most people can make it to better. They can improve their situation and stabilize at a minimum.

As you know, the point of this blog is not to teach you how to become financially independent or how to FIRE, There are others who do a much better job of it. I will, however, raise the alarm and suggest that if money is your main concern, there is a reckoning coming.

The money mind meld will shield your eye from reality.

Accumulating is the easy part because there is prescribed path. The rest, however, is much more amorphous. Much more squishy. Like my example above, just because you have the freedom to travel carefree, doesn’t mean that life’s annoyances won’t follow you from place to place. And those annoyances will eventually become that which you worry about.

You must expand for no other reason than adaption.

Treadmills and Adaption

We have talked about the various treadmills including the hedonic, achievement, and stoic. The problem with any kind of goal, is once you achieve it, it becomes the default. The floor. Financial independence appears like a shiny toy from afar. But once you hold that toy in your hands for a little bit of time, it loses its luster.

Such is life. Even the best of living situations will become the norm if such luxury is prolonged. Our bodies strive to run faster, we adapt to that which is familiar.

You think that having enough money will solve all your problems, but you are wrong. In a few months, it will be like you never worried about money in the first place. Yet happiness won’t be any more automatic than it was before you reached the mountain top.

You must expand. Continuously. Every day.

Challenge

Challenge will be the way forward. Once wealth is no longer an issue. Once you have optimized your relationships, and travel, and relaxation. Challenge is the way forward. It is the only way to reconcile treadmills and sap adaption.

You have to continuously change. You have to expand.

People often wonder how I am slowing down at work but have already filled my time with writing daily blogposts, podcasting, and whatever new venture I get my hands on.

Can you blame me?

How else do I create newness and passion? How else do I fight off the groundhogs day of repetitive life without change?

Final Thoughts

You must expand. Because money is the easiest part. Treadmills and adaption makes stasis impossible. The only way through to find contentedness is challenge.

Whether it be a new hobby, business, or creative project. There is no end or beginning to contentedness.

It’s a continuous cycle with peaks and valleys. Not a treadmill.