The FOMO Is Real And It’s Not What You Think

I went part time at my job in October 2017 after exceeding my target financial independence net worth.  I wrote about my initial experience with my new freedom last November, and again in April.  It’s my intention to keep doing updates as the journey progresses.

You can read about my latest experiences at work now that I’m a 20 hour a week has-been here.  Today’s post is an update about my experiences outside of work.  Otherwise known as the good parts of life.

I’m hoping that in telling my story of what it’s like to semi-retire, I can bring to light things to consider in your journey.

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FOMO

The term FOMO stands for the fear of missing out. But missing out on what?

I’m now free from my W2 job and the shackles of an office building 20 hours a week, and thus spend a lot more time out and about.  I’m increasingly convinced that most people are missing out on the real world.

You know, the old familiar one that you can see, smell, and interact with.  The illness of “phone zombie-ism” has been spreading like a bad virus for years now, and I’m determined to inoculate myself.  The FOMO is real.

Here are some zombies caught on surveillance doing really stupid things.  Wait for the end.

Those are the innocuous ones, until the last one.  These zombies are increasingly slaughtering themselves and other humans every day.  Yeah, it’s all fun until people start dying.  And they’re dying.

One of the biggest reasons I went part-time at my W2 job after becoming financially independent was to get more of my life back.  Spending that much time on a proverbial treadmill in a sterile office is just not what humans are meant to do, nor what I’m meant to do.  You may disagree, and that’s fine.

But now that I’ve been at this semi-retired thing for about 9 months, it’s increasingly clear that I must be careful.  I’ve been using much of the freed up time on my two side hustles – my graphic arts shops and this blog.

The former makes decent money now and keeps increasing monthly, and still feels like 100% fun.  I really enjoy it. 

The blog?  Well, it’s more complicated…..

 

When Does Fun Become Work?

To be clear up front, I enjoy writing on this blog.  I’ve done stories about my life and how certain experiences relate to personal finance, and helped get me to financial independence.

I’m working on more data-type posts that are focused on helping those seeking geoarbitrage or those who live nomadically to optimize their finances.  And I have some cool plans for those types of post going forward.

It’s also been an outlet for my admittedly warped sense of humor, even though those posts don’t perform too well.  They’re actually probably penalizing my blog for SEO, but I don’t really care (other bloggers be ghastin’).

I like doing them, and I think the world and the personal finance community need to laugh more.  They may not be Onion quality, but a few folks have given me good feedback and one person even said she laughed out loud once.  Made my day.

Here’s the problem.  I mentioned before my dislike of social media.  Well, getting back to phone zombies, I also have a general dislike of cell phones, or more specifically the ability to always be “on and connected”.

Most blog promotion in the community takes place on social media.  Despite Cal Newport saying that it’s “shallow work” and that it prevents deep work, I find that some is necessary when you’re a noob like me.  I do however agree that it’s shallow work.

But here’s the thing, I sometimes feel like I’m on a never ending treadmill.  At the end of the day I have this nagging voice in my head saying “Did you check Twitter?  Did you thank those folks who shared your post?  How about Reddit?  You might be missing a chance to promote a post…”

Enough already.

In short, because of the never ending tether to social media, my blog started feeling kind of like work a while ago.  Not fun.

As mentioned, I went part-time at my job to get off the W2 treadmill.  And I’ll be damned if I’m going to jump from one treadmill to another.

I have a big stash of FU money.  Coming from Baltimore I can be very liberal about dishing out FUs.

 

Reality Is Better Than Virtual Reality

When I leave my house and go out, my new rule for the past 2 months is that my phone stays in my pocket, very often in airplane mode.

I want to interact with and see the world – not my phone.  And Lord knows the real world isn’t through a screen.  That’s a memo that increasing numbers of people haven’t gotten.

So I took all social media apps off my phone a while ago.  I really only had Twitter on there anyway.  I took Facebook off over a year ago because I hate Facebook, it’s a massive memory and battery hog, and it’s not the real world.  It’s the curated world, with increasing levels of advertisements that you can’t block.

If you follow me on Instagram you may be wondering how I post there since you can only post with the mobile app.  I use my tablet, at home.  Easy peasy. Tablets unlike a full desktop use the mobile version of Instagram.

And I’ve never had the WordPress app on my phone because I don’t want to be able to check page views on my blog while I’m in line at Aldi.  I’d rather try to get out of my comfort zone and do something novel, like take note of the cashiers name and strike up a conversation.

 

Deliberate Time

To prevent my blog from feeling like work, my recent strategy has been to be deliberate and allocate specific time to it.  When I have a 2-hour window for the blog, I use it.

I may write, or I may promote.  But I do those things on my desktop or laptop at home, or at the library.  It’s deliberate time, and often scheduled.

And, I like to work on big screens – who wants to look at a tiny screen?  It’s easier to be productive with a big screen.

I will not scramble my outside time, be it at the store, at a red light, or waiting in the doctor’s office, by being on and looking at the world through my phone.  That treadmill is not for me, and it frankly has been making me feel stressed.

I sought financial independence to reduce stress, not increase it.  I sought financial independence to get off a treadmill, not to get on a different one.

Do I want my blog to succeed and make a lot of money?  Sure, that’d be nice.

But if getting to that means it has to become a job – with all the stress of the never ending social media treadmill, no thanks.  Or if that means changing my writing style to get a green light from an SEO algorithm, again, no thanks.

I’m in no hurry.  I’ve already recouped my 3-year blog hosting costs plus more.  I’m confident that I can succeed on my terms.   And success to me doesn’t mean this blog makes tons of money.  Success means it’s fun, I do what I want, and it doesn’t feel in any way shape or form like a job.

It’s unlikely my blog will blow up.  That’s okay.  Although I could see my blog becoming a ‘business’ one day, business doesn’t have to be work.  I could create an LLC from my graphic arts hustle right now and it’d still be the same fun.  But my blog strategy is closer to Angela who wrote this great post.  I’m doing it on my terms.

 

The Non-Gorilla Glass World 

I have FOMO, big time.  My fear is missing out on the world around me when I’m outside my house by being another phone zombie.  The FOMO is real indeed.

Not long ago, while sitting at a red light I saw a beautiful deer in some trees off to the side of the road.  I looked at the car to my right to point it out to the guy, and what do you know, his head was buried.  He was on his phone.

Who’s missing out?