Financial Independence Is All Relative
Last week while lifting weights I had 70 pounds on a barbell. If you have weights at home, go and pick up 70 pounds. It’s a lot of weight. I have some female friends who barely weigh 25 pounds more than that soaking wet.
I wasn’t in the mood to workout that day, so it was a chore. But then I reminded myself that I used to weigh almost exactly 70 pounds more than I do now, back when I was obese. That substantial weight was something I used to carry around all the time, on my body!
How did I ever live like that?
That thought reminded me of how far I’ve come and motivated me to get things going.
It’s All Relative
Back in the days when I weighed 230 pounds, that was my normal. If you had asked me on any given day how I felt, I would have probably said “ok”, or “pretty good”. Except on weekends when I was usually hungover.
But what did “ok” actually mean?
I was obese, I had a huge gut. My pants size was 38, and my belly always hung out over my waistline. But that was also my life, my normal. I had been that way for a good while.
So on any given day, my description of feeling “ok” was when I wasn’t sick or didn’t have knee pain. But I was often sick, and very often had knee pain.
I’m now 70 pounds lighter and infinitely more fit and in shape than I was back then. And here’s the thing – even on a bad day today when I’m not feeling great, I guarantee I still feel better than the best day I ever had back then.
In other words, that former obese me had no idea how good a person can actually feel. Because to get to that state required losing 70 pounds, building muscle, and becoming aerobically fit. And that took a long time, a lot of hard work, and discipline. It took a total lifestyle change.
So for me what was once considered a state of feeling okay would now be considered feeling horrible. The key is that most things in life are relative to the context of your normal day to day reality.
Work, Finances, And Relativity
It is all relative Mr. Einstein
Take the ‘Sunday night dreads‘ for instance. You’re staring down the gun barrel of a long work week and only have two blessed hours left of weekend freedom. That horrible feeling of doom engulfs you.
Now imagine one Sunday night where you didn’t have them so bad. Maybe you have a relatively easy week at work coming up or maybe you had such a great weekend that you’re just not letting the thought of another work week ruin things for you.
If you had to rate your level of Sunday night dread on a scale of 1-10 (akin to a pain scale) on that good Sunday, you might give it a 4. Much better than most of your Sunday nights which are in the 6-10 range.
But your good score of 4 would register off the charts to someone like me who’s semi-retired, only works two days a week, and has no Sunday night dread. Or any other day dread for that matter.
So in this hypothetical scenario, what feels like a great Sunday night is actually still a terrible Sunday night. It’s just not as terrible as it normally is. It’s all relative to not having the Sunday night dreads at all.
Semi-retiring and going part time made me realize this phenomenon with stress in my life. In the middle of my working career when I was hitting it really hard and pulling long hours, if I had a few weeks that were relatively easier I would have told you things are going pretty well at work. Not too bad.
In reality that situation was still extremely stressful, and bad for my health as compared to what I’m living now. I was still under a butt-load of stress. But an easy period at work was blessed relief from the normal stress-filled chaos. I had no idea how good things could actually be, I was living my normal.
How Good It Can Be
The reality of anything in life that we’re trying to achieve – anything that we think will make life better – is that we really don’t know how much better it is until we get there. Financial independence is no different.
I found that in and of itself it didn’t make me happier.
But it resulted in being able to semi-retire, which made me incredibly happier and less stressed.
Events in my life now that are a bit stressful probably wouldn’t have even registered on my radar when my life was a rolling train wreck of work stress and time deprivation.
Conversely, if I were magically able to plop my current self into my life when I was in the thick of my working career, I’d probably keel over with a heart attack.
But thanks to decades of smart money habits and the magic of compounding interest, I’m able to realize how good life can be. And believe me when I tell you, only working two days a week is similar to shedding 70 pounds of weight.
You have to get there to know how good it can feel.
It still floors me that you were ever obese having met you in person. Congrats on the weight loss. As someone who has yo yo’d a bit in the weight scale I have experienced the exact phenomenon as you. I topped out at 225-230 range as well. I am currently 178 after trying to whip myself back into shape this year.
The feeling of being at an appropriate weight is far better than the temporary joy I got from over indulging in food that led me to the weight issues.
I still have the Sunday night dreads. I can’t weight to see how it feels when I don’t
Congrats on the weight loss Doc, keeping it off while working full time in a stressful job is the hard part. And sorry about the dreads, if I had your job I’d have them too
Great one. I appreciate the notion of relativity. I agree that what qualifies as ‘stress’ to me nowadays would not have even been acknowledged back in the working days. And I used to have a wicked case of the Sunday dreads which has now completely dissipated. Yep, you’re never quite sure exactly how it will feel until you get there.
Now the dreads for you is having too put a new set of guitar strings on 😉
i’m with you on all this relativity stuff. i watch a lot of hoops. the n.b.a. gets these college kids who largely look like a greek sculpture of adonis. they think and look like they’re in great shape. then the coach tells them they’ll be getting in n.b.a. shape and they really find out how those guys who’ve been in the league 5-6 years are “really in shape.”
when i was 25 and floundering around in the mess of my own making i had no idea what it would be like to not ever worry about money. it took work and consistency but nothing most ordinary people couldn’t do.
good analogy w/the nba kids, goes for a lot of other sports too. And same for me at 25, when I wasn’t drunk I was either working or planning to get drunk
Now I know why I feel so much better in retirement than I did when I was working. If working 2 days a week is equivalent to shedding 70 pounds, I’ve experienced the equivalent of losing >100 pounds with my full retirement! No wonder I feel so good. Relative, indeed. Great post.
Ha, I can look forward to getting even lighter when I retire then!
I’m super jealous, and that must feel amazing. Just the switch to full-time telework has given me a taste of what you’re talking about though. The alarm-clock and commute dread is gone at least. I don’t think I can go back to that life, and getting a taste–just a taste–of a less stressful life has me even more motivated to get to FIRE ASAP.
The telework thing is sooooo luxurious. My 20 hours a week are now all telework, so things have gotten even better. You see it, it’s awesome. Like you said, once you have the taste you can’t go back.
Stay the course, you’ll get there!
I’m carrying about 5 pounds extra right now and I don’t like it. I need to eat better and exercise a bit more. It’s been hard stuck at home.
You’re right about the constant maintenance at a higher level. Sunday evening is a terrible time for most working people. But that’s the best time of the week for me. I work on my blog post on Sunday and relax the rest of the week.
Semi retirement helps a ton.
All those delicious meals you post on your blog and Insta surely have something to do with the 5lbs 🙂
You’ll get it off, you obviously have discipline
Great perspective you have there, Dave. I appreciate your ability to relay what good there is to come to us full time working folk from across the void, if we keep at it. It’s nearly impossible to see the forest from the trees. It’s messages like yours that inspires me to stay the course.
Good on you for getting into shape. Change is tough no matter what, but changing personal habits takes the most discipline. Especially so when gratification and results are delayed.
I get the Sunday blues every weekend…
Wow, so stoked I can inspire you, that’s my goal here so that makes me feel great! Sorry about the Sunday blues but stay the course dude, there is a light at the end and it’s bright!
Having done both FI and 70 lb weight loss, the weight loss was a lot easier……..
Both are hard for most people, since most people are overweight and in debt. It’s be an interesting study to see which might be easier for a majority. Reaching FI should take longer, although it took me 15 years to lose all that weight.
Dave, you have a wonderful way of crafting words and sentences and intertwining it with analogies. Had 2 conversations yesterday with 2 friends. One is FATFIRE and about to exit with golden parachute and is looking forward to working part time at REI because he will get 40% employee discount on gear and 20% discount on REI trips and thought it would be fun to hear about other people’s trips and help introduce them to new gear. He is really looking forward to the new retired life. The other one may already be FIRE already but she has no interest in personal finance and has no idea her FI number or how much she spends yearly. She claims that the corporate culture is still bad and she is ready to move on after putting up with it for 10 years. She is looking at other jobs which would necessitate selling home and moving to a new city for her special line of job. Just hear her story made me think “hell, that is STRESS”. Life is too short to put up with 10 years of corporate culture misalignment.
Wow I’m blushing – I appreciate your readership and the compliment!
And the part time REI gig – believe me I’ve thought about it many times. Not as much for the gear discount although that would be nice, but I have tons of gear. I would love to get customers stoked on getting outside and to be able to pass my knowledge on. I’m a jack of all trades, I climb, ride, run, backpack, snowboard etc. I’m not super-awesome at any of them but competent and experienced in all of them. I’d love to be able to get noobs started with basic advice. Nature heals, and it would be a great job to help heal others.
Dave,
If you don’t need/want REI Employee discount, could I please mooch off of you if you ever decide to do the part-time REI gig? 🙂
Deal!
Patiently waiting to feel the full effect of financial independence… 🙂
I felt a huge relief when my retirement assets hit 7 digits. I retired with four times that amount which replaced my earned income, but I think hitting that first goal made the most difference.
I have not been doing the milestone thing, which I think Dave even writes about as being a good idea. Likely we won’t go to part-time until we could just straight up retire and I think part-time will be a big deal. Although, moving to a new location because of remote work will likely feel quite a bit like “early retirement” if we get the right place.
If you’re like me you have to reduce hours to get the happy effect. Just being FI didn’t do all that much as my graph goofily showed. But reducing hours, that did the trick for sure
We keep combating the risks of our pure stock index funds by just piling in more money; at some point we’ll go to part-time. But right now we’re liking what we do so we figure we’ll just keep saving and investing. 10 years or so we’ll dial it back I bet. 🙂
Even though I’m way way past FI and semi retired I keep piling it in too. But have dialed back my equities stake a bit as a percentage of my total portfolio
Self reflection and the big picture is important in our journey in life. Helps us take stock of a situation and that encouragement to get over a hump if needed or take a break if we are making something out worse than it actually is.
Can’t say I’ve ever made something out to be worse than it actually was… nope, not me… 🙂
Hi Dave!
Congrats on the weight loss! May I asked what was your mindset to getting to 230 lbs in the first place? Have you always been obese?
I gain weight easily and it’s always been a struggle. I get checked every so often by my dad who tells the truth “Son, you are huge!” After I should him a video of my hitting a softball at 173 lbs.
I want to lose 10 lbs, but it’s tough bc of food delivery, pandemic, and two young kids.
What motivated you to change?
Sam
I was always heavy as a kid, but after lots of childhood trauma that lasted well into my teenage years I basically drank massive quantities of beer until I was in my early 30’s. Thousands of calories of beer before you’ve even had any food on a given day is a sure way to become obese. I wrote about it here.
My motivation to change was realizing I was heading towards type II diabetes and and early death. That should wake anyone up, but the US only seems to be going the other way as obesity has hit 42% and is still climbing. I hope my story can motivate others to change. Good luck in your journey Sam, as a parent I’m sure it’s extra hard. You obviously have tons of discipline in life so I’m sure you can manifest it towards weight loss.
Hi Dave, thank you for this. I just bumped into this post via another blog in New Zealand.
I’m totally relating to this. I am a Principal at a school and am about to have a second child in March. My wife and I have made some (mostly) great financial decisions over the last five years. I am dreading the concept of having two kids under the age of 3, as well as being in charge of 700 students at a high-demanding. Although I’m grateful for the role I have, I need to prioritise.
I am now considering resigning from my role after a good run and getting back in the classroom part-time. These financial decisions have allowed me to do this and will allow me more time with my family while they are still young. However, it is still a bit scary but after reading blogs like this and chatting to friends, I know it’s the right thing to do… I just need to do it!
Thank you for your post, ones like these are very encouraging. 🙂
This made my day MT! I’m so glad the stuff I put out there is resonating with some people and is encouraging. Here’s the thing – it IS scary. When I was deliberating over giving up my big-wig manager job to go part time I was torn, it made me so anxious. I’m not good with big decisions like that. But I pulled the trigger, I found that eventually forces too strong were just pulling me to do it.
Stay the course, and remember that time is the one thing you can’t get more of
Great post. Over the last few years, I’ve lessened or eliminated a lot of stressors in my life and made changes to bring me joy and increase my gratitude. That’s helped, for sure. But my pursuit of FIRE is in large part to help me address some of the bigger stressors that remain—the ones that might now be a 4 given my current perspective, but that I hope to get to 0.
Great job, get as many of those 4’s to 0’s as you can. Any reduction in stress numbers is a good thing
I can remember those Sundays when the adventures of the weekend were ending after the huge buildup of Friday and being so gleeful to be done for the week. Sunday comes round and it’s nearly time to go back to the grindstone. Ugh.
Often I’d stay up far too late on Sunday, doing whatever, just because I think it gave me a sense of extending the weekend and avoiding the next day. Then I’d be exhausted on Monday, which would kick the week off in even worse form. Sigh.
And I didn’t even have jobs that I paticularly disliked! I just really liked doing *everything else*.
Delaying the pain… or extending the freedom. I used to do some of the same stuff, and I’m sure a large % of the population does as well. Life is so much better now
Loosing so much weight would have been so liberating Congratulations !!! to you for doing that. And yes I agree financial Independence is absolutely relative. Financial Independence for a 25 year old who has just started earning and Financial independence for a retired person has a lot of difference
Oh it was liberating and then some, totally life changing. As I wrote, one doesn’t know how good you can feel until you get to normal weight. It’s amazing. Thanks for the comment!
Consider the purpose structure you set up. One child turns into a doctor and one girl a lawyer, and you say they don’t “need” your cash. Simultaneously you give complimentary housing, board, and bailouts for their kin, who sits at home in charge card obligation however will not search for work. You’ve figured out how to adequately transform that youngster into a monetary and credit addict.
Thanks for the comment!