Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja
Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 9:16 am
I would like to think that there was a Sclass of The Medieval period to advise people on the matter.
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https://forum.earlyretirementextreme.com/viewtopic.php?t=5671
I would like to think that there was a Sclass of The Medieval period to advise people on the matter.
In the article there's also some noise about needing money because of a coming recession/bear market - No. Fucking. Way. That he's going back to work because he needs the money. Although, if that's true, then something something WSP is full of shit. Anyway, this is the real reason he's going back to work:cimorene12 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 27, 2018 10:37 pmFinancial Samurai Working Again
I was interested in the recent article where Financial Samurai explained why he was returning to the workforce, beyond running his blog. I've been reading some stuff lately by disenchanted full-time parents who wished that they could spend more time with their kids while they were on the corporate treadmill and then found out that the grass wasn't as green as they thought it'd be.
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I refuse to believe that with $213k/year coming in, it's actually necessary to get a 9 to 5.
This is 100% me being a prick, but I. JUST. LOVE. THIS.I think it would be nice change of pace to be a part of the 95%+ of dads who don't see their kids for 40 - 60 hours a week...
suomalainen wrote: ↑Fri Dec 28, 2018 9:46 amI am savoring the irony as it dribbles down my chin like fat from a steak.
lol, ‘tis the season!
From my 2017 retrospective wherein I grapple with the solved problem (2nd loop) and even ironically note that I solved this problem years ago!:suomalainen wrote: ↑Tue Aug 08, 2017 12:14 pmI think the theme has been that since the accident, my internal life has been thrown topsy turvy in a way that has been very difficult to get a handle on. I started reading IlliniDave's journal today, the "Journey of Mindfulness" title catching my eye. Something he wrote really resonated with me and my struggles -- "I think too much." There's a certain myopia to the thinking and even the thinking about thinking.
When it comes to early retirement (or "freedom", which seems to be what retirement symbolizes for me), it's like navel gazing and picking out each piece of lint as it gathers, or more graphically, picking at a scab to see how it's healing. I don't know that it's healthy. So, the struggle has been, as it seems to have been at least in the early entries for IlliniDave, to learn to live in the moment.
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I dunno. Too many thoughts...but as I walked to my office today with my lunch, the thought came to me "I'm feeling miserable. But I could just choose to be happy. There's nothing objectively wrong with anything I'm doing or anything I have. I have a very safe job with colleagues and clients that respect me. It pays very well. It will eventually enable me to retire and try something else. I'm not the janitor or the cafeteria workers who work just as long as I do but don't get paid nearly as much..."
And yet. and yet. I'm not satisfied. Perhaps I never will be. But what if I could just choose to be satisfied? Could it possibly be that easy?
Wherein I made my third loop, this time with brevity:suomalainen wrote: ↑Sun Dec 31, 2017 7:16 pmSomewhere along the line around 2010, I had the realization that I could work and save my whole life only to retire and then die the next day (perhaps obvious is the underlying assumption that I don't love working for money). "Fuck that", I thought, so I decided to try to be at peace with my finances and to be patient with the process, knowing that I had selected a good process that would eventually get me to where I wanted to be financially. Things were good. And then I got hit by a car.
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a nagging irritation that financial independence was not actually an end. It was an answer begging for a question. So, for the last few months, I've been trying to puzzle out all of this
In June, having read more about my problem, I wrote about it in terms of ruminating, my fourth loop:suomalainen wrote: ↑Tue May 29, 2018 11:47 amSo what if I just stopped stressing? I don't have a money problem. Why do I keep thinking about money? It's stupid.
In August, the fifth loop came about, but with a slightly different framing - the hint of realizing that my feelings were not me:suomalainen wrote: ↑Tue Jun 26, 2018 9:33 pmDeliberate mindfulness. Force quitting zombie processes. Stop thinking and stop planning - for a while you can just live. Quit pursuing unattainable goals. Reframe when you feel stuck. Stop ruminating.
And in September, the sixth loop reflects that I'm feeling more confident about the calculated solution, so much so that I'm even offering advice to others (perish the thought):suomalainen wrote: ↑Thu Aug 23, 2018 4:25 pmI like that: a thought is just a thought and a feeling just a feeling, nothing more. Another thing I read mentioned having a mantra like "this too shall pass" to help remind you that difficult thoughts, emotions and even situations are typically fleeting. In addition to "this too shall pass", I also like "and yet, somehow, life moves on".
And also in September, I surprise myself with my lack of psychosis:suomalainen wrote: ↑Thu Sep 06, 2018 6:50 amChoosing an option does require foreclosing other options, at least temporarily, but it's important to remember that no external situation (job) that you choose will bring you happiness. There's no magic. If you're not content (with your life), commit to being content (with it). Maybe that requires an external change, maybe not. Choose contentment. External factors are mostly secondary once basic needs are met and if there's one thing you know from ERE, it doesn't take much money to meet your basic needs. Maybe you already have all the tools you need to be happy, so you don't need to put so much stock in this one decision. It's just a decision and one that can be easily changed if the first one isn't the right, or perhaps more accurately WHEN the first one turns out to have run its course and you're ready for the next one you can just move on to the next one without regret.
And in October, I reached my eighth loop and my first meta-loop:suomalainen wrote: ↑Wed Sep 26, 2018 12:17 pm1) Some (much?) of my heightened anxiety over the last few years is related to poor stress management and the poor narrative I construct around it. I have been working on new strategies to deal with stressors/triggers and/or to practice "reframing".
2) I've been feeling weird. Like, the days just blend together and there's not much to really recommend them, but also not much to complain about. And it's that latter thing that has me a little weirded out. Like there's this niggling suspicion or feeling that I've given up or I'm being institutionalized or that (a grand) life is passing me by. It's just so...NORMAL. And I'm just so...FINE WITH IT. What happened to my grand aspirations? What happened to my complaining?!
And in November, by the ninth looping, it has become ho-hum routine:suomalainen wrote: ↑Mon Nov 12, 2018 10:23 pmI've been in the habit of ruminating about feelings that arise, trying to find out what such feelings "meant", or perhaps "Meant" (a thing that God was trying to convey to me). Obviously, such feelings always Meant that something in my life had to change, that something wasn't right, and I was the lone poor bloke who couldn't figure out what was likely obvious to everyone else. But I was wrong about feelings. Feelings just are; they don't necessarily Mean anything. If ruminating on the (non-existent) Meaning of feelings puts me in a negative psychological state, a turn towards happiness doesn't require teasing out some Meaning or Truth from an ambiguous feeling and making big or complicated changes. The first step is as easy as turning away from ruminating about the Meaning of feelings.
Capped off in December by a tenth loop in connection with reading a book about Buddhist meditation:suomalainen wrote: ↑Sun Dec 02, 2018 2:11 pmI was able to step outside of myself for a bit and notice that the cloud hanging over me was a cloud that was held in place...by me. Releasing it let me notice that all was not shit in the world. I think some of this is letting my anxiety get out of control and not doing enough to mindfully bring my blood pressure, heart rate and breathing down on a regular basis when I get amped up from work or kids or stress or whatever.
***************suomalainen wrote: ↑Thu Dec 13, 2018 10:30 pmI really like that idea: liberation from the craving to capture pleasant feelings and escape unpleasant feelings, liberation from the persistent desire for things to be different than they are. I have been a slave to this idea for far too long - thinking that money/ERE would solve this problem. No matter where you go, there you are.
Which is all a very long way of saying that I have decided to be at peace with my job, my kids, my finances. My job isn't so bad - in fact, it's a pretty effing good gig. Kids are expensive**, but when I have sufficient time to myself to recharge my batteries, I am MUCH better able to engage with them in positive ways. And money is a solved problem so long as the apocalypse doesn't happen, and if it does, money will be of no use then anyway. How do I "decide to be at peace"? By doing what I knew was the answer 1.5 (and 8) years ago - just letting go of the negative thoughts and feelings as they come. By not focusing on them. By choosing to watch them appear, giving them their space and giving them leave to go.[This next passage really strikes a chord as it overlays perfectly with the idea of rumination:] “the effort of trying to free yourself from a bad mood or bout of unhappiness - of working out why you’re unhappy and what you can do about it - often makes things worse. It’s like being trapped in quicksand - the more you struggle to be free, the deeper you sink…When you begin to feel a little unhappy, it’s natural to try and think your way out of the problem of being unhappy. You try to establish what is making you unhappy and then find a solution. In the process, you can easily dredge up past regrets and conjure up future worries. This further lowers your mood. It doesn’t take long before you start to feel bad for failing to discover a way of cheering yourself up…[This happens] because our state of mind is intimately connected with memory. The mind is constantly trawling through memories to find those that echo our current emotional state...It happens in an instant before you’re even aware of it. It’s a basic survival skill honed by millions of years of evolution. It’s incredibly powerful and almost impossible to stop.” Pg 8-9.
From Mindfulness - An Eight-week plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World. Mark Williams and Danny Penman.
[Comment from my reading journal:]Rather than struggling to understand the difficult feeling - ruminating - the idea is to observe it compassionately and without judgment and letting it go like watching a cloud float from one horizon across the face of the sun until it disappears beyond the other horizon.
To think Dante navigated Hell in just nine.
I have had the same effect doing light labor work such as weeding, dishwashing, or transplanting for extended periods of time. Once an activity becomes subconscious the conscious mind is allowed to wander.
Also, in reading the linked article, I realized I'm burned out. The twin jobs of work and parenting have maxed out my mental load. Maybe some day I'll again have the energy to do something other than these two things. Until then, taking some basic quality time for myself (daily meditating, daily exercising and occasional personal getaway travel) will have to do. I can be no more productive than providing for my family and raising them (and some days not even that much). It's funny. When I was younger, I judged parents for being selfish - not individually selfish, but family selfish - they couldn't see anything outside of their own families. Now I realize that they were so family-centric not because they were selfish, but because they just didn't have anything left to give.jacob wrote: ↑Sun Jan 06, 2019 9:37 amThis talk of the constant need to be productive and organized wrt child rearing reminds me of this:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/an ... -debt-work
Supposedly, burnout is more prevalent in the Millennial generation compared to older ones. That doesn't mean that it doesn't exist in other generations. I've experienced various levels of burnout over the years and I'm wondering whether it's a result of having spent decades in a combination of competitiveness and organized use of time that begins to spill into all aspects of one's live. That basically taking an activity that's inherently motivating and imposing an external structure (schedules and measures) to make one more productive eventually removes inherent motivation for ALL activities---even basic tasks---as this spills over into the rest of one's life.
The result is that the mind with it's limited amount of decision and planning-energy starts sorting and ignoring all the high-effort/low-reward efforts. A result might be that nothing gets done for its own sake anymore. Fun is gone. It's all about striving and achieving and anything that doesn't satisfy one of the achievement metrics one has internalized, it can't be done.
Also: http://earlyretirementextreme.com/produ ... -eggs.html