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FIRE.126 10 Favorite Things

I talk to people about my favorite/most important activity—10 Favorite Things—all the time.

Surprisingly, I searched on myself—actually in my posted LifeInFIRE thoughts—and I cannot find where I clearly describe this process and its importance to me.

Important Activities

Here’s what I learned from the Playing With Fire movie.

I learned about creating a list in my electronic notepad of my 10 Favorite Things to do each day or week.

I brainstormed about my very favorite things to do. These include activities, environments, thinking, etc.

I then sorted my very favorite items to the top and my less favorite down the list.

The Goal

The goal is to try and do a couple/some of those activities each day, and especially each week. My thinking is what good are our days if we’re just grinding away— as a cog in the machine— and not enjoying our life.

The Process

I found the action of just creating the list to be of immense value. Thinking through, and writing down, your most treasured life activities must be one of the more core elements of who we are, or at least of our deepest internal happiness.

I don’t often look at my list of 10 Favorite Things, but I definitely know what my top 3-5 are at any given time. Oh, that makes me realize that the list can shift and change depending on life, on the seasons, even based on a pandemic with lockdown/quarantine/everything-being-closed situations.

Actually, if your list of favorite things did not change during the pandemic craziness, is that a clear sign that you are living true to yourself already? True to your very core? Possibly, a good SloGo?

Hmmm, now I have even more to think about. (sometimes that’s dangerous, “too much Kevin”)

New Idea – Dislikes

It just occurred to me that maybe I should have a list of things that I don’t like, or cannot stand to do. Then I could rank those and possibly “outsource” those tasks to someone else. Maybe there are people out there who like those activities. I’ve read about valuing your time, say $20 or $50 per hour. Then you can get a value for these outsourcing activities. It may even make sense to just understand how the cost of these activities are just a part of making your life better, and possibly doing one or more of your favorite activities at that same time.

What are your favorite activities? And now, after that last paragraph, what is their value to you?

*** Nothing in this article is to be construed as financial advice. I am not a financial planner, nor do I pretend to be. You should always consult your own professional when seeking advice. This post is not a piece of literary mastery, just a random thought I had.

FIRE.125 5-year-blog

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I noticed the other day that I have completed five years typing random thoughts into the interweb. That’s a little scary…!

It’s a little scary that five years of life flies right by. That’s ten percent of my life hammering away on a keyboard for no reason other than the one below. BUT, the scariest part of this thought is that I’m sharing random thoughts which probably have no business or requirement to be in the ether. These thoughts could in some strange perpetual formulation exist in stardate 198297 archived in some light-based storage solution that can trace the thoughts of all beings back to the time of storytelling’s origination. Not likely, but actually likely.

Reasoning

Back to the reason: In 2016, Fincon was coming to San Diego, and Clark Howard was announced as a keynote speaker. I’d listened to Clark for over a decade when I ran or biked. It was an amazing opportunity to hear Clark as well as meet some of the bloggers/podcasters I’ve learned from over the years.

I assumed that some random FIREd guy couldn’t just roll into FinCon. I thought Fincon may be more like Comdex or other trade shows that I’ve finagled my way into as an “industry professional.” So, I gave GoDaddy $10 to buy a name that made sense to me. Drafted a few posts, somehow wordpressed up my account, and my random thoughts were out there. (That’s perfect—no matter how you read that last sentence).

A few months later I roamed around Fincon like I belonged there (somewhat). Oh, and since I don’t like to give away my money, I asked if there was a way to volunteer and PT said yes and gave me the info. I was able to help, learn, meet, swag, and best of all talk with Clark.

…Still?

I’m still blabbing, 5 years later. I even have a cartoon and a logo.

There is no shortage of things that cross my path in daily life which give me a huge list of topics to think about and write about. I find so much of life interesting. If I were funny, then I could write jokes, but instead, I just type paragraphs and share some of the safe topics.

Soul

One strange thought related to time (plenty of time posts lately) is: when I was a teenager in the late 80s my neighbor used to crank up his Boston records(?) and I thought “how dated” he was. Then a decade or so later I would tell my wife, I don’t want to be “that Boston guy,” I want new music. Well, right now I am that guy, but worse, listening to music 30+ years old. The best part, I don’t care what anyone thinks. It’s part of my soul, a DEEP part of my soul—as music often is for many. I should be clear that I do find and listen to new music all the time. There are excellent bands for me to listen to. The surprising thing to me is that so many of the new bands put out better “albums” from start to finish than any of the bands from my youth.

The point is: Some things can stay the same, and even get better with age. Enrich your soul.

FIRE.124 Age is Relative

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Relativity Rules All.

In some ways, I feel old – tired from over-workouts, from living life, and consciously seeing and observing the world. I look at this positively, from a perspective of being active and engaged.

While it’s true that sometimes I can literally feel the weight of gravity on my being, that’s not a bad thing. That’s just one sense in my body activating and showing me that I’m alive and on the go.

I’ve always thought inertia meant “an object in motion, stays in motion.” Yet, lately, I’ve also read the definition as “an object at rest, stays at rest.” I wonder why I always assumed the active movement aspect of inertia?

Why did I not realize it was more generalized as “an object maintains its state of motion or non-motion?” It probably was a teacher’s presentation and not my intellect. Maybe I was only paying half attention. That’s most likely the cause.

Let’s get back to me.

In some ways I feel young – active, the freedom of childhood, no kids, manageable responsibilities, in almost every way—an amazing life.

But as I wrote last time, the decades fly right by. It takes conscious effort to partake daily and weekly in the things you love. If you don’t make the effort, the love does not happen. The day and weeks just become a thing of the past, a part of your history.

I’m not sure what “middle age” is, but I have a feeling that I’m right smack in the middle of it. Maybe I’m even at middle age early because I’ve broken away from the 9 to 5. Maybe that is why I am reflecting, or more appropriately, why I have the time to reflect.

To me, it seems that reflecting, and realizing the greatness at my current age of 50 seems lucky. I’m old enough to have a past (kind of a long past), and still young enough to have a future. Possibly, even a long future. By taking action now, to take action in my days and weeks, I may be optimizing, or even maximizing (is maximized more than optimized?) my future.

I am very aware that I’m an “old guy” now. I’ve been to activities with “youngers.” Events like CampFi, ChooseFI, even the gym, make it clear that I’m now older, maybe even the “elder.”

How can those past two paragraphs be so different, yet so similar? I’m older, but I’m still young enough to have a great life ahead of me?

I’m now reminded of a few wise thoughts:

Do not dwell on the past. You cannot change the past.
Don’t over worry about the future. You cannot control the future. You can only control yourself right now. I’m not sure the exactness of my interpretation, but for me, it makes sense, and it works.

I try to have a great present. I know deep down, actually right on the surface, that I need to do an even better (much better?) job and having a great present. I also believe having a great present, sets up a great future. Isn’t that the best “present” for yourself?

FIRE.123 35-50

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During my morning “commute” time I was thinking how BAM, the decades seem to have disappeared.

To be more precise, it almost seems like I jumped from 35 years-old to 50 years-old in a matter of a few years, at most.

I feel my wife and I lose track of seasons (and years?) because of a few reasons. 1) We do not have kids, nor are around family children all that much. Therefore, we do not have the basis of school calendars/years and seeing the kids grow. 2) We live in Arizona and you cannot tell what month, or even season it is when looking out the window. It’s just non-stop sunny—beautiful days over and over. I should mention that it is possible to tell the season if I put my hand on the window glass. The glass will either be cool, warm, or HOT. That’s the clue for the season/temperature outside.

35 then 50!

The jump from 35-50 included work employment changes, positions, office locations, salary ranges, etc, to now being retired for 6+ years. Looking back, it happened in a flash. Almost like I haven’t changed at all myself.

I can say that I can tell my age when exercising. There is no denying that my run/bike times at 50 years-old are not close to my times from 35 or 40 years old. It’s also quite clear that after exercising it is best to let my body recover a little more. I still get at it, but I just cannot get into 5^th gear anymore.

The above are not complaints, not at all, they are just realizations—like the wrinkles on my face—that decades have passed and passed quickly. I have lots of great memories of adventures and activities. I have frequently said, “I have done all the major things I thought I’d want to do, I’m good.” I still have experiences, activities, and goals ahead of me, but I didn’t waste my previous years putting things off. I have had an amazing life. At least that’s the perspective I choose to take. I don’t think it’s a glass “half-full,” but rather a tall glass of the best drink you could imagine.

So how should we tackle the amazing sesquidecade jumps?

I was thinking about other jumps that happen quickly:

20 then 35:

Life felt like the normalized American path from 20-25-35. I had successfully transitioned from being a newly married, college graduate starting a new job/career in a new state at 25 years-old. We traveled for fun, I traveled around the world for work. It seemed normal, and so many (very) new adventures and activities.

I didn’t mind grinding through college classes, working 3 jobs, living in the cold climate, and striving for a good future. Then in a flash, school is over, multiple degrees on the shelf, married, moved to a new state, and a decade completed in a new career, not to mention world travel completed. So much life, but at warp speed.

50 then 65:

I know a lot of older people and talk with them multiple times throughout the month. So many of them say the years just flew by. The years almost disappeared before they knew it.

I am working really hard to make sure this disappearance doesn’t happen (but it still does) by making sure each day, and each week I do things I love.

I truely believe if we don’t do these activities now, we may not be able to do them in the future, i.e. ever again.

65 then 80:

These are the classic GoGo retirement years we read about all the time. The time where many people no longer working 9 to 5 to 65. A time when, if your health is good, you have ALL your time to yourself. The time to do whatever you please. The time when the road ahead opens up and you can step on the accelerator. Hit the gas and go. If we live these years correctly, these years will not disappear, they will be fully utilized.

Geez 80-95?

I don’t know if these years jump by in a flash, or if they get cloudy, or disappear based on memory or cognitive issues. I know many people 80+ who are sharp and active and still do what they

Just me sharing my random thoughts of a Life In FIRE.

FIRE.122 YOFO (YOSO?)

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I should state this upfront; I’m very far from being a millennial. I lack so many of the traits; being energized by social engagements, being born with technology, being raised where everything is possible, and even having very few acronyms to explain my lifestyle, etc. Yet, the YOLO philosophy is very intriguing to me, at times. Not to the point of live for today like there’s no tomorrow.

I’m now in the old category where I’m in the tomorrow. Actually, to a younger person, I’ve been in the old category for over a decade. I had this strange mental block of having no concept of FOMO. I see that acronym and it just does not register in my brain—almost not at all. I don’t know why? I wonder if it’s the deep-down sense of being an introverted only child and not that interested in other people. I wonder if it’s because I was raised in a community where people got by with what we had and almost never compared ourselves to others, or our items to others items. Maybe because life was hard at times and the extreme cold weather could snuff you out in less than an hour? Who knows?

YOFO

But one thought I’ve had lately is “You’re only 50(s) once.” I’ve given lots of thought about finally growing into my age (or the other way around). I’ve always felt like an old guy mind in a youngerish body.

I’ve written and talked about being younger and healthier now than you will ever be in the future. I’ve written about living a great life now. Making sure you do some of your favorite things each day and week.

I wrote about taking that daily/weekly amazingness to an entire decade. Then I wrote about taking it up to an entirely higher level.

I realize the absurdity of saying YOFO You’re Only Fifty’s Once in a “retirement” blog, but for those who are “YOSO,” it’s the exact same thought. Make sure you are living the greatest life you can. Live it each day, every week, throughout the year. It doesn’t matter if you’re in your Sixties or Seventies—you’ve earned it.

PLAN

If you are in your 40s, or even 30s, I’d say you probably want to be a little conservative on the money-side of living it up. It’s not all YOLO when you’re that young. Dave Ramsey is spot on with his “Live like no one else, so you can live like no one else.” Or more clearly: “Live like no one else now, so later you can live like no one else.”

I have a consistent thread through my writing and my living—enjoy your days, do what makes you happy, take care of your loved ones, including yourself.

NOW

If there are activities and experiences that you feel will make your life even more amazing, create a plan to accomplish those experiences. In so many parts of life, it doesn’t seem wise to wait for those special experiences. What If you cannot do the activity when you’re older? What if you do not have the health, or brain function, or even the money to do something big. Plenty of writings state it’s the experiences that stay with you, not the stuff. I agree, but some of your favorite experiences may be accomplished because of a stuff. Live your amazing life now. Why not!?

FIRE.121 Mojo Phase

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BOOM— like you’re shot out of a cannon—you’re flying, off into your retirement. After the initial shock (think retirement party confetti/smoke) you realize you’re flying above the ground, arms flailing, no safety net, you are all on your own. That’s SCARY…at first.

That was a strange analogy that jumped from my keyboard, I have no idea where it came from, but honestly, at some point, you settle into the adventure. You look around and realize—I’m flying free. Maybe you are literally flying and off on some travel adventures, or maybe your mind is flying free to take on new tasks and interests. Hopefully, you have released the ball and chain (of WORK, you know—your job, the daily grind—what did you think I was talking about?) and feel the freedom.

I love the Michael Stein retirement phases of GoGo, SloGo, NoGo. I think the years are roughly assigned as 65-75, 75-85, 85+, respectively. Yes, I see those numbers overlap a little, and that is perfectly correct. There will be some overlap in your own “Go years.” But…

MoJo = GoGo+

Recently I checked in with a cohort who had progressed from the “retiring soon” phase, to the “finding a home in Fort Lauderdale FL” and being too busy with their scuba diving lessons and running around doing all sorts of activities in their new life/style to even keep up with themselves. In talking with them, I felt like they had turned on their mojo. They are absolutely loving their new home, new activities, and new lifestyle.

This made me think about being young and active, and how we will never be younger or healthier than we are today, right now today!

Shouldn’t we take extra care to fully maximize our “best” days that we will have into our futures?

Last year my wife and I decided to kick our retirement into a higher gear and live it up a little. We figured it was the start of a new year, a new decade, etc. I dubbed it the Raving 20s, sometimes Roaring 20s.

To be more transparent, I wanted us to spend an extra $1000 per month living it up. It seemed to me that $1000 per month—or more accurately $12000/yr—just assigned having a blast would be a significant increase in spending. It also seemed like $120k over a decade, our youngest years of age decade would be doable. It also seemed if we lived it up for the decade of my 50s, I would be able to take the “GoGo decade” of my 60s a little slower if required—having already lived an amazing decade.

So our MoJo decade was going great, right on plan, for TWO MONTHS, then the world stopped and then opened back up to slowwww pace. After a while of no mojo, I realized we were actually living in the SloGo phase.

OK, so now it’s 2021. For the truly detailed person, this is the actual start of the new decade. How’s that for a positive slant? As I usually do, I was crunching numbers back and forth, left and right, tool A to tool B (actually tools C, D, E, F, etc), and there have been crazy returns that past few (many) years. Time to rethink the MoJo Roaring Raving 20s decade, right?

So here we are with a new and improved plan to take MOJO to a full-caps SHOUTING level. We’re going to increase our monthly spending more. We’ve planned the new increased amount over the next 9 years and the hit of just the increase to our investments is less than the growth of just the past couple of years. [note: there is a whole; bucket/safe withdrawal planning opportunity here] We will revisit the investment portfolio balance/net worth statement each year to be cautious, but I want us to go for it for a decade.

Thought: it seems so crazy for me to type out what I’ve been processing in my head (spreadsheets) for the past month or so. Carefully planning an increase in MoJo should not be too crazy as long as we monitor and make little agile adjustments along the way. To be clear, going from mojo to MoJo or MOJO level spending is based on reviews and agility.

So much of our MoJo plan is based on a pretty low base floor cost of living lifestyle. I think of it as “living large in a tiny home/lifestyle.” Maybe a step below (or different than) “upper-middle-class.”

Airborne

Back to being shot out of the cannon, flying through the air without a safety net. I feel like we’ve launched airborne. However, I do feel like we have a safety net. I feel like we could land our “flying” at any point by slowing or stopping our extra spending if required I also believe we could increase our spending again and fly some more if appropriate. It’s almost like interval spending with recovery periods in between. (my wife would understand that based on her drop-saddle spinning classes—but she doesn’t read this because she’s stuck listening to my babble all the time anyway).

What is your mojo? How are you optimizing and maximizing your current best, youngest, hopefully healthiest years, right now?

I feel like you can be risk averse or cautious and still push yourself outside your comfort zone safely. Maybe I’ll revisit this post in 9 years, or 3 years and realize I was clueless. That has happened before with some of my plans, but honestly, I’ve found that well-thought-out plans, monitored closely, tend to do pretty well. Professionally, I found catching the problems early allowed for the easiest reorganizing and ability to continue onward in the project (where feasible).

Here’s to your MoJo!

FIRE.120 Income Satisfaction Fallacy?

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Why do we keep hearing that life satisfaction perception levels off at $75k of income?

What is the core?

Is that research statement related to spending all of your take-home pay? Are they really saying that having a salary higher than 75k only delivers incremental satisfaction?

I wonder if that amount is a target for a household to live nicely—living from paycheck to paycheck —thereby eliminating the extreme stress of being able to pay one’s bills. Thinking back to when we were both in college and working (I had three part-time jobs at once, for years) we made far less than $75k, yet we managed to live well, travel, and save. Even with inflation adjusting, I have to believe our incomes were 20% below that threshold.

Our perspective

On to our professional careers, we made less than $75k starting out and we still lived well and saved. But when I think about it, we lived in a small 1000 square foot home (still our home) and drive older used cars that work perfectly fine. Maybe we just didn’t inflate our lifestyle to match the lifestyle of others? Maybe we didn’t have instragram and facebook (aren’t they the same?) to judge our lifestyle/success against others—other’s glamour posts.

So did our lifestyle increase multiplicatively when our salaries multiplied over the years? No, it did not, not at all. Yes, we did grow our spending some, but our home and cars remained extremely constant for a decade at a time. That in and of itself kept our inflation adjustment quite low and in our control.

Did our not upgrading everything give us a sense of lacking, a sense of wanting? No, not really. If we wanted something—needs were always taken care of—we just planned for the want. We determined the best item for us and then purchased it when the time was right. We have always been satisfied with our purchases because they were thought out in advance.

Satisfaction

So did I feel more satisfaction as our salaries grew beyond the magically $75k. I’d say with absolute certainty, yet. It wasn’t a “spending” thing. It wasn’t an “I make XX amount” statement. It wasn’t status, or value, or accomplishment. I think it was the deep-down understanding that we had control of so much of our destiny at any given time. Even related to a health issue, we had the funds to attempt resolution of such an issue.

I believe part of that comfort is that I personally get an immense amount of satisfaction saving and investing the top portion of my income. It is the act of putting my money into a protection mode. I get plenty of satisfaction seeing my net worth—hard placed planning/savings effort—grow and progress. It’s not the dollar amount, it is by far the freedom of everything that amount may entail for the future.

There is a reason many surveys ask people “do you have $400 for an emergency” or “do you have $1000 saved for an emergency?” Those amounts may allow someone to resolve an issue before it turns into a crisis, or worse, a downhill financial spiral that can be extremely hard to escape.

So is “satisfaction” the ability to fulfill one’s needs? Is satisfaction the knowing you can handle an upcoming incident? Is satisfaction the feeling of working towards an all-encompassing goal? Then how would you define your personal increase in satisfaction, and can a salary over $75k provide that increase? In my personal experience, yes, a higher household income increased our ability to progress to all our goals.

No Salary Slant?

Here’s a different take on the $75k life satisfaction analysis. Our current “salary” is $0, and our “income” has been in the $20k range yet our satisfaction is extremely, magnificently high.

Living a lifestyle that ties closely to your personal beliefs is quite core to feeling purposeful. A life of purpose seems to present satisfaction. It’s even possible that a life of leisure—that contained previous amounts of purpose—can provide satisfaction. It’s entirely possible that if you are intentional in how you live each day that you are increasing (compounding) your life satisfaction.

Maybe all of this just comes from someone how worked through college degrees, to then develop a career, while living below their income level and taking an opportunity to leave their career to do something different. In this case, to do whatever we want, whenever we want. And yes, some of that includes giving to others, because that’s what we choose to do. That’s how we get our life satisfaction.

So, others have found the same conclusions I’ve come to. Those are some serious high-incomes.

FIRE.119 Resolutions, Revelations, Goals

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Maybe it’s just me, but I haven’t seen a bunch of articles on New Year’s Resolutions this year.

I have to wonder if that’s because people aren’t writing about goals this year, or if they’re still working on one of the bigger goals in their lifetime—to survive 2020 with some sanity and positivity. Maybe the resolutions are already built into our psyche— that 2021 will be better than last year no matter what we do?

If you are one of those people who had a good (enough?), or strong 2020. That is great. Maybe it’s your mentality, or maybe it’s just the way the circumstances fell. No shame in progress, no matter its form.

Purposely

I don’t really do New Year’s Resolutions. Yes, I understand it’s “a new year” and “a new start,” but living in Arizona in a FIRE lifestyle, it is really, really hard to tell one week/month from the next. That isn’t necessarily a good thing. It takes conscious effort to make sure to appreciate every day. However, the start of a January 1^st “day” isn’t all that hugely significant.

However, I do plan each year to give myself a Christmas present, a revelation to myself—a gift to myself. I give myself the gift of steering my days and challenges to meet some level of a goal over a period of time. It’s my Christmas Revelation.

Past Revelations

My goals might be: run 365 miles this year, run+bike 1000 miles, do yoga each week, meditate multiple times per week, help people every day, do 3 nice things for others each day, eat 8 fruits/veggies per day, eat only from noon to 8 pm, be a nicer and calmer person to those around me, etc. etc.

There is no difference to the betterness goal of my life structure in my revaluation than a resolution, but I treat it as a gift to myself. In typing that, I realize I am so very self-centered with so many things in my life. Hmmm, that doesn’t seem that great, but I try to expound external goodness in many ways.

Simple

I like the simple—but not easy—target of having a word for the year. Once single, little, simple word to steer your yearly actions and decisions. That seems quite doable if you can remember to keep your word in focus.

Do you have a plan, and quantifiable targets to make things better this year?

How do you tackle your progress: Christmas revelations. Goals for the year. Activities, Actions, Word of the year?

FIRE.118 Am I Rich, Really? (time)

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Last time I left a brain dump on the interweb I wrote about the majestic feeling of being Rich, in Time.

I want to revisit that thought and post.

I was quite naive, to say the least.

I based the thought/post on the sleeping vs work timeline. The ability to shift daily time around to meet my needs—needs at the moment. However, much more thought should be taken with regard to the overall time of our lifespan. Maybe 80% time now and 20% lifelong time.

After posting my wonderful thought(s) I listened to The Retirement and IRA Show about Jim Salunier’s health scare. Or more clearly his dire life-changing health emergency. This was the most powerful podcast episode I have ever listened to.

I’ve considered and written about the future life-changing visit to the doctor awaiting all of us. It’s scary not knowing the outcome of our health. Actually, many of life’s upcoming events are scary.

This podcast episode really brought crisis much closer to my home life. I took away the actual blindsiding of an instantaneous DRASTIC retirement/life change. AND the sheer battle for life for a person who was alone and had to fight to survive, even while at their own home.

There was an extremely high probability that Jim could have died. I’d say even a 95% chance of not getting help.

Plan ahead. Keep a cell phone on you. Maybe even an (or multiple) panic buttons? A smartwatch that can make emergency calls…

My point is that it might not be a doctor’s “visit” that slams us. The medical issue itself could easily be a crisis that happens when we are alone. The crisis could blindside us when we are healthy and active. Quite possibly attacking us while we are active.

I was also significantly moved by Mr. Firestation’s post of having a heart attack after playing one of his frequent tennis matches.

I clearly see that our “time” to enjoy life to its fullest (or at a high level) will end at some unknown point. It is so important to find enjoyment in every day.

I realized that being “rich” in time can (will?) disappear, just as being rich in money could disappear. Please do all you can to take care of all your “riches,” so you live a great life, and help those around you live better as well.

I’d like for EVERYONE to find at least one way to make their environment one step safer in the next week.

FIRE.117 I’m Rich…in Time

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There is one impossibly strong force that bounds all of us and it’s not gravity, it’s time.

No matter who you are you have limited time!

I just realized my shift in thinking this morning on my “commute” (sitting in my spa).

I had previously considered health to be the most important factor in life. Everything we do is based on our health ability. It’s our physical health to perform tasks. It’s our brain health to learn and enhance knowledge, skills, and abilities. It’s deep mental health that puts us into moods that allow our interactions with the world around us.

But it’s time, literally, to realize that everything we think and do is based on a ticking clock.

Backing up a few hours from my commute…I was relaxing last night watching Eureka (S3E4) about a time-space loop. It didn’t register anything dramatic in my mind at the time, other than it was an interesting episode, and that the show creators had placed the story into the timeline on a very significant day in town. BUT, here’s where my real-life story gets more interesting, I woke up at 3:30 am and couldn’t fall back asleep so I got up and sat on the couch and decide to FIRE up the TV and stream some happy Eureka. I finished the show episode mentioned earlier.

Once in a while, I tend to wake up at 3 or 4 am and either lay there and fall back to sleep or rarely get up and visit the couch. Now, this sleep interruption would be a total hassle for a 9-5-er. It always sucked going back to bed at 5 am when I had an alarm ready to BEEP at 6:30 am. But in FIRE, there is no alarm for work. Yes, maybe you have an alarm to make sure you don’t start the day too late (7:30 am?). But my morning entering-the-world-time is largely based on how I feel.

I’ve always felt a super magical freedom with the ability to go to sleep later than I planned or wake up earlier than I planned if that timing suited me for the night’s rest. I’ve known that freedom is one of the super-powers of FIRE.

The difference in today is that I realized this nightly concern, this daily schedule flexibility, is of far greater magnitude when zooming out and looking at it from a higher week long, month long, or even decade long perspective.

What makes this time consideration more valuable is that this richness can disappear at any time, for any reason. Your financial situation could change. Your family situation could change. Your physical health situation could change. It’s entirely possible that one single doctor’s visit—within your family—could change the entire time/course you have been on and planning towards.

I give away some of my time riches when I choose to give time to help others. The act of helping may seem to take time away from your time bank. However, these acts probably reward you in many ways that are non-financially driven, by giving your soul a sense of fulfillment. That in and of itself has a huge value on its own.

I’m not all zen, all the time. Geez, I’m barely zen when I’m trying to be zen, but there’s an important part of your soul that needs the nourishment of goodness. If you are rich in time, then you have the extra wealth to give and nourish.

Addendum: We once had a president who was very rich. He won an election and lost most of his time freedom. He gave away four of his later years in life to serve our country (and his ego). I feel he gave away some of his (time) riches without even knowing it.