There are many paths through life, and each one of us is on our own journey. But some paths seem so non-traditional, so risky, or so absurd, that they stand in defiance of the “traditional” approaches to life. To those walking a different path, they simply see this as the way that they move forward – regardless of how they appear to others.
I long held the belief that I would retire early and stop working forever after that. It was only until my recent career break (which ended up being the start of my new life) that I realised that this wasn’t what I wanted at all. More importantly, I realised it was possible to create the life I wanted much sooner than I thought.
There’s a path that I’ve discovered that has helped me grow as a person. It has had me achieve what I believe is an incredible life. The best part is that there is still much more to do, achieve, see, and experience. As I head further down this path, I feel as though this is the right path for me right now.
But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Pursuing this path has changed who I am as a person, and walking away from certain things in my life has surprised and confused some of the people I know.
Walking a different path – forging my own journey through life – helped me discover exactly who I am, and where I want to go.
I want to share that path with you, as well what almost stopped me from taking the first step.
Welcome to the Work Series – my thoughts on how the work we put in front of ourselves forces us to grow to overcome it.
The Traditional Path
There appears to be a traditional path prescribed to us in the modern day.
From childhood, we are ushered into school, then encouraged to go into debt for higher education. Then due to the burden of debt, we are forced to work. We may need a car to get to work, so we go into more debt for a car. We need to increase our income so that we can pay off the car, buy a bigger one, then buy all the other stuff we’re told we’re supposed to have. A pattern starts to emerge.
Maybe we meet someone, start a family, and buy a house (with debt) to put our combined stuff in. We buy the largest house we can afford so we can buy more stuff to put in it. The path continues as we move through life, and as our incomes continue to rise.
The path ends the same whether we have a family, children, or otherwise:
Consume, continue accessing debt, and keep working hard to pay off those debts. Save some money to earn a few good years of retirement once we’re done. Or rather, once the world is done with us.
The Downward Spiral
I see this as a dark and cursed spiral.
From an early age, parents, teachers, celebrities, and now social media influencers teach us what to think. They all play a massive role in getting us to think in certain ways, and about certain things.
But rarely do we have the chance to exercise how we think. Most of us aren’t taught how to think critically. It’s a skill we develop as we drift through life. In some circumstances, you might not develop that skill at all, which leaves you more susceptible to the messaging from what you consume.
We buy what we’re told to buy from advertisements and social media. We use debt as a tool to get things ahead of schedule. Rising expenses, combined with existing debt, force us into lives of excessive and damaging work.
The need for consistent income to pay for everything in lives chains us to our jobs. Our very beings become intertwined with our jobs, to the point where we lose sight of who we are outside of our work.
The reward that awaits us in retirement is the unravelling of our professional persona, and with it, the instant stripping of meaning and impact from our lives.
The worst thing is that we’re not even “getting ahead” through the debt. All debt does is continue to send us backwards and leave us drowning us in repayments. This only exacerbates the issues above, leaving us more stressed, more involved with work, less present outside of work, and uninspired in retirement.
Problems arising from debt, consumption, and overwork are significantly harder to unravel later in life. And as these pressures only continue to escalate in our society, developing strong money habits and a healthy relationship with work has become a necessity.
Grim Reality
The path this life leads us down is one that has been laid by those that benefit from us walking it.
You don’t benefit from consumer debt – the producers of goods (and bankers) do.
A stressful job won’t make you rich – instead, it enriches shareholders.
And a retirement without work – without any meaningful pursuits – leaves you both powerless and meaningless. But at least you have the time to consume whatever you want to fill the void.
The traditional path through life hasn’t been designed with our best interests at heart. Rather, it’s been orchestrated to extract as much value from us before discarding us.
Perhaps these thoughts come from a place of darkness. From a person who saw how excessive consumption and extreme workloads were warping their life.
How a poor relationship with money, or time, or work, can inflict devastating damage to one’s psyche.
And how entrapment in the system deprives the soul of the freedom that life can offer.
Perhaps there’s a sad truth to these thoughts. A truth we refuse to acknowledge, until the void growing from the late nights, stress, and emptiness threatens to swallow us whole.
The Different Path
But there is another way to live. A different trajectory to follow, that opposes the school-work-retirement path laid out before us.
A path that embraces learning, working, and retiring all at the same time:
Those on the path of Slow Financial Independence pursue full Financial Independence while acknowledging the value of Work.
We can choose the work we want to do – the obstacles we need to overcome. We create the space and time to overcome those obstacles, improving our health, wellbeing, skills, and earning potential in the process. Life involves constant learning in order to take advantage of opportunities as they arise. And building a life of flexible learning, working, and resting puts you an a position to make the most of everything that comes your way.
Slow Financial Independence is the path that I’ve chosen for my life. This path has given me the freedom to write, learn new skills, earn money on my terms, and Choose Work I Love.
My strategy of pursuing Financial Independence and maximising the value of my time has allowed me to transform how I engage with work. The safety net and income potential achieved earlier in life allowed me to walk away from my traditional career.
I don’t know if this path is “better”. Every decision has advantages and disadvantages. But Slow FI is what has allowed me to create the life I always wanted to live. And walking a different path – daring to do something life-changing – was the only way I was able to start.
Walking a Different Path
Deciding to make a massive change doesn’t always come easy. Walking a different path means foregoing traditional options. It means living a life that defies the norm.
You can take this in any direction based on how you want to live. Regardless of your strategy, carefully choose what matters to you, and use your money on what matters.
Finding ways to earn an income without spending your time allows you to pursue things that matter to you.
Committing to a life like this doesn’t come naturally, and isn’t easy. There are forces that stand in your way. These forces threaten to stop you from breaking away from the comfortable path: fear, loneliness, and failure.
Fear
There are many things to be afraid of in life. Loss of income and declining health are two that rank highly for many people. Change itself is something we fear and resist. Sharing my writing publicly with my professional network ranks highly on my recent lists of fears.
A loss of salary is fearful for those living lives that are reliant upon them. To them, life teeters on the edge of financial catastrophe.
The entropy of our bodies will slowly unravel us, making us more afraid and willing to commit to working more earlier in life to get enough for later.
Yes, we need to earn enough, and we need to maintain our health. But we need to do so in a way that doesn’t have us succumbing to our fears.
Combatting Fear
The fear of trying something new can be difficult to overcome, but it is possible. We have to become mighty enough to overcome those fears.
The fear of losing an income source can be overcome by diversifying our income streams and by increasing our self-reliance. Creating a safety net of alternate income sources and a healthy amount of savings allows you to try something new.
Living a less stressful lifestyle allows us to better manage the inevitable decline of our health. This becomes more difficult the more time commitments you have.
Quitting my job in 2023 with no backup plan was terrifying – even with enough savings to make it work.
I was nervous sharing my writing with my professional network. So I only began doing so once I was happy with its quality and consistency.
Our minds will always find a way to be afraid of big changes in life. Sometimes we simply have to face those fears in order to grow.
Loneliness
As you grow and discover new ways of thinking, working, and living, you begin to notice your relationships change.
We all head down different paths over time as our interests and commitments change. Eventually, friends and colleagues you made through school or work are living entirely different lives to you.
Sometimes, the common interests that originally drew you together don’t align. In some cases, certain relationships become difficult to maintain.
It’s easy to feel lonely in situations like this. And sometimes, that makes us commit to a lifestyle we don’t really want, just to save us the pain of being lonely.
Combatting Loneliness
We combat loneliness by finding community.
Those walking a different path know full well that they risk walking that path alone. Those that succeed on their journey are the ones looking to connect with like-minded people.
There are people out there that are doing the same things you are. There will be some further along that you can learn from, and others you can teach.
Do what you can to find these people, even if it means doing something you’ve never done before. Growing, trying new things, and meeting new people is how we keep loneliness at bay and figure out what we truly want.
Failure
Perhaps the biggest challenge in all of this is failure – or specifically, the fear of failure.
Nobody wants to fail, and that fear of failing is drilled into us from an early age. From school exams that dictate your career prospects, to scholarships awarded to elite students, our society trains us to chase success and avoid failure at all costs.
This makes sense on the surface. Failure often translates to lost opportunities and a loss of potential income. Avoiding failure makes sense when an extreme outcome is destitution.
But it seems that this collective fear of failure traps us in lives we don’t want, under the guise of safety and security.
We stop trying to do new things because we might fail or look stupid. We convince ourselves that it’s better to do nothing than to fail. All this does is keep us on the same trajectory we’ve always been on, and renders us powerless to change our lives.
Combatting Failure
The easiest way to combat failure is to understand that failure isn’t a problem. It’s a learning experience that comes with conducting experiments.
Certain types of failures are good experiences, and being in a position to experience them is important. Of course, you can’t try everything. But you can try anything – so long as doing it doesn’t destroy you.
This website was an experiment in crystallising my thoughts on money and meaning. So far, it’s introduced me to new people, helped me articulate my thoughts, and has provided content that others have enjoyed. I see this as a total success – even if I haven’t made a cent from it.
Even my consulting company is an experiment (and has already failed in the past). There are so many ways to work and it’s easy to ignore the many ways you can make money. Maybe these possibilities don’t work out, but I want to try and see if any of these options work for me and those that I work with.
Create a life where you’re able to fail. Creating, and failing, and creating, and failing, is how we create the extraordinary life we always wanted.
Closing
Slow Financial Independence may have been the path I’ve followed, but the concepts I’ve shared here can serve as a guide for anyone walking a different path.
It doesn’t matter what the path is. All that matters is that you think carefully about your life, and decide if you’re heading in a direction that aligns with your beliefs.
I want to avoid seeing my life as a linear path from school to work to retirement. I want to enjoy all three of those things at the same time, while building a life that isn’t reliant on me having them all at once.
And Slow Financial Independence is how I’m achieving that.
Thank you for reading.
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