Correct Time investment

[Jin+Guice]

ERE gives you the opportunity to NOT maximize money though and pursue interests? Only if you demand to FI asap do you need to maximize income quickly.

I think the strategy presented will lead to the desired results if you're unsure of what you want to do or if you are trying to find the combined maximum of all three variables.

The risk in focusing on money is that you don't get good at discovering what you like. We have a huge cultural bias towards focusing on money.

I think Jacob is rare in that he knows what he likes to a high-degree. He also seems to be able to incorporate feedback from his environment into his model to a high degree without experiencing much anxiety about "finding his passion" or "not following his dreams" or whatever. Thing thing I think you want to build is a feedback mechanism with yourself where you internally generate hypothesis about what you like to do and test whether you like them and if they are feasible in the real world. If you are able to pay attention, in real-time, to how you feel and how things are going for you, then you are going to be alright on the interest/ money/ talent spectrum. If you are subservient to a narrative about following your dreams or what a responsible person does, then you are at the mercy of those beliefs.

Following my dreams of working in the music industry ended up being important for me when I was younger. It got me to remove myself from a culture where I was unhappy and eventually placed me in a culture where I was happy. Though the dream didn't work out in the form of a long-term career*, it helped me figure out who I was and find the people I wanted to be around. I also enjoyed my time there and never have to wonder what would have happened if I'd followed my dreams when I was younger.

*Could have/ would have stayed long enough to FIRE at that job if I had known about it or figured it out back then.

There is also the option to fund your life with a job that you aren't that interested in that you either work for part of the year or part-time. If you are at or near the 1 JAFI level, you have a lot of options.

[zbigi]

Joined military post high-school, and with educational benefits even, I ended up not pursuing game design. That spark died or simply could not be reignited. Or maybe I did not think it was realistic anymore due to some life circumstances at the time (I married and had kid young and need to work like right now). I'm not totally sure.

You might be interested in "Indie Game: The Movie" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1942884/?r ... %2520movie). It's a documentary following a couple independent developers who went full bore on making video games on their own, and became successful. It's a well made film overall, I recommend it.

[cimorene12]

it's easy to talk about how to invest money, and find ways to make profits.

but how to invest time?

I've always had this question to answer, even if a lifetime, I think, wouldn't be enough.

a) have a part-time job and do your hobbies the rest of the time?

b) have your own company, part-time, and do your hobbies the rest of the time? (assuming you can do it given the fact that you have to be available 24/7, or at least think about your job 24/7).

c) have a job or your company for 10 hours a day and live for your job?

d) you add

There's no correct answer. There are different cycles in your life. If you set up a system for enough cash flow to live on, that's pretty much my aim when it comes to money.

[jacob]

I think Jacob is rare in that he knows what he likes to a high-degree. He also seems to be able to incorporate feedback from his environment into his model to a high degree without experiencing much anxiety about "finding his passion" or "not following his dreams" or whatever.

Maybe, but it wasn't always so. It's something I figured out over time, as ...

The risk in focusing on money is that you don't get good at discovering what you like. We have a huge cultural bias towards focusing on money.

I grew up with a huge cultural bias towards focusing on just pursuing my interests whatever they were. Any student career counseling started and ended with the question of what the student was interested in. Aha, just go and study that then. I cynically suspect this was because interested students are more engaged and graduate faster. It could also simply be that the welfare state with its safety net didn't create much personal risk in picking the wrong path other than wasting time. As in sometimes 5-10-15 years of waste until people eventually figure out that the ability to make money is also important. I lucked out in being interested in something that was also employable.

Now being older and a bit wiser, I insist on people considering all three variables: employment, interest, and talent. I see how failing on one dimension will fail in different ways. For example, many students (and adults) don't really have any interests per se (beyond being on the receiving end of commercial recreational activities which is pretty much useless in terms of employment) and so they pick according to what their friends pick; what's available at their particular college; what sounds cool from some TV series about doctors or lawyers or whatever; or perhaps what their parents expect of them(!!). I see that as lacking passion and in that case it's probably best to pursue a course that's easy and doesn't have high job expectations.

Interest often aligns with talent but not always. It's possible to be really interested in something without being particularly talented at it. This might be the worst curse. In that case, I suggest keeping it as a "fun hobby" rather than ruining the fun by trying and likely failing to make a living at it. The question to ask here is what am I actually good at; more precisely ask what am I better at than most people. In my case it wasn't physics or mathematics but technical writing and presentation. My talent is explaining very complex and complicated things to the layman. (My 11th grade English teacher actually recognized that and suggested a career in that, but I didn't listen and went with what I was interested in. In my later physics career, I'd judge my research as average, but I was complimented on my presentations and papers.)

And then there's the whole personal finance dimension and making money. Americans (and especially Eastern Europeans) are inundated with the importance of the pursuit of wealth and status. I had nothing of that in my SD:Green environment. Indeed, I considered the whole money aspect totally irrelevant and was indeed quite a snob about it. It was only moving out of country that forced me to learn and since the typical model no longer fit I had to figure out my own---physics-style with flowchart and diagram of parameter spaces---and that eventually turned into what you see in chapter 7.

Most people will likely waste time, money, or happiness because they ignore 1 or 2 of the 3 components. It's easy to make a table of which combination of biases leads to which failure.

[Jin+Guice]

@Jacob:

Interesting! I guess maybe the caveat is... figure out what your cultural bias/ biases are and watch out for them.


I also want to point out that following your interests did in fact lead you to discover a point which maximized all three for you, which was technical presentation. Would you have gotten there without following your interests?

From the other side, I chose to pursue sound engineering rather than musicianship because I am both more talented at it and it is much more employable. As I got older I realized that I was using external markers of success rather than internal ones. I don't have to sell-out stadiums or produce gold records to categorize myself as a success.


I think the main skill to develop is an internal sense of how things are going. This is why I like the needs hierarchy and emotional awareness. How do you actually feel 2 years into pursuing your dreams as you sit in a room alone for 12 hours a day and can barely afford food or shelter? For some this may truly be ok, but for most you'll end up miserable. The power is in recognizing that misery and making a shift.


ERE adds complexity to this though, since mastering ERE is effectively the same as being able to live a middle class lifestyle on a minimum-wage part-time salary (or possibly minimum welfare benefits in more socialist states.. no idea how much this is?) OR retire in 5 years OR some combination of both... the options start to open up.

Since FI expressly eliminates the monetary component, I think not developing the talent/ passion portion of the trinity becomes a great issue (after retirement).

[Jean]

I followed something that pays well, that i was very interested in, and that I was much better than average at, and my career was still a faillure.

My advice would rather be to do wathever the people whose compagny you enjoy the most are doing.
All my best friend studied music, and I should have done that.

If you have no network, you have no career. If you can't connect with people in a field, you'll have no network.

[chenda]

Excellent post @Jacob.

I followed something that pays well, that i was very interested in, and that I was much better than average at, and my career was still a faillure.

Why do you think it failed ?

[Jin+Guice]

@Jean:

Aha! I think you are getting at something which I was trying to say earlier. In a culture where job type is seen as an identity trait, employment determines much of your social/ cultural life. I am very talented and interested in applied mathematics (i.e. stem fields) which are highly paid. I'm the only person in my family who holds a non-stem degree (but I later pursued a stem degree, if y'all will count post-grad econ, haha). But the culture of engineering or another mathematically intensive field didn't speak to me and I think I would have been perpetually unhappy had I pursued that path. Pursuing a more artistic field lead me to experiment out of my comfort zone, which lead me to find "my people" which no one had told me was important. However, if you realize this, there is no reason you can't find "your people" outside of work, though gaining access can be hard if you don't do anything they value or speak their language.

In other words, music provided me with a bunch of social and cultural capital that engineering wouldn't have.

Also, this is ERE, not corporate career camp... the goal is not a successful career but a successful life, no?

[Jean]

@chenda
Most people that hire stem graduate don't like something about me, and i was never able to point what it is and correct it.
This is a pity, because i really like solving stem problems.

@ginnjuice
I still have my music friend.
They see me as a friend, but they now never think about me for their music projects.
I also don't know why. I would really love it.
I see some people with very little talent or skill be invited in project, so i don't think my musical abilities are the limiting factor.
But a least, i can make music alone, while i can't solve problem i don't have or that no one asks me too.

[zbigi]

Americans (and especially Eastern Europeans) are inundated with the importance of the pursuit of wealth and status.

Did you mean Eastern Europeans in the US? Because at least here in Poland, majority of people have working class / "loser" mentality - they don't expect to rise up above average, and try to find happiness in things like family, tending their garden (on the allotment, few people can afford houses with gardens) or simple interests. It's basically wholesome hobbitland. People aren't obsessed about wealth, because, up to the very latest years, there were few ways to obtain it, so obsessing about it would be futile. It's changing now, but the change is slow, and money-obsessed people gather in a few largest cities, leaving the rest of the country mostly as it were. Contrast with America, which was "the land of opportunity" since inception, which made people feverish with trying to get more, "because it's there to grab, if only they try and work harder/smarter".

[zbigi]

@chenda
Most people that hire stem graduate don't like something about me, and i was never able to point what it is and correct it.
This is a pity, because i really like solving stem problems.

If there's something in you that puts off most hiring managers, then it should be aparent to your friends from the engineering school, or other friends with STEM careers who know the job culture in the field. You could ask them what it is. It has to be friends or family though, because they're the people most likely to be honest with you if the truth is somewhat uncomfortable.

[guitarplayer]

OP if you think of investing time as 'commitment of time to have more time later', then I think

- invest time in buying back your 'standard' allocation of time by
-- building a pile of resources to cover for future time (simple version is to have a pile of money to avoid exchanging more time for money - think Your Money or Your Life)
-- invest time in investing money to create resources to cover for future time (simple version is FIRE)
- invest time in getting yourself more time by
-- learning how to prolong your time before you kick the bucket without spending much resources

Otherwise, I think the advice @jacob for when choosing thesis topic is spot on, many things can become interesting once one dives deep enough.

Also I think it is worth to appreciate life is very long to be doing the same thing for its entirety.

[guitarplayer]

If there's something in you that puts off most hiring managers, then it should be aparent to your friends from the engineering school, or other friends with STEM careers who know the job culture in the field. You could ask them what it is. It has to be friends or family though, because they're the people most likely to be honest with you if the truth is somewhat uncomfortable.

@jean, after our brief encounter, I think in a nutshell suffering fools gladly is what you may want to show more that you are able to do. Incidentally, if you dabble with care work, which you can get at any time and for good income, you will hone that skill. Also, I think from a position of an(y) employee (rather than a non-employee) it will be easier to transition to a STEM field if you want (as in, it is easier to apply for a job when already having a job). But you might also fall in love with care work. I think it can be a lifelong meaningful pursuit in the right circumstances.

[delay]

@chenda
Most people that hire stem graduate don't like something about me, and i was never able to point what it is and correct it.
This is a pity, because i really like solving stem problems.

Many STEM jobs turn out to be the usual: creating Excel sheets and PowerPoints, attending meetings, and selling things to other graduates. They're not about solving STEM problems but about climbing in the social court structure. This involves skills like pleasing higher ups, gaining trust and building alliances. On the darker side, there is sabotage, deflecting blame and misleading. Someone who is honest, unyielding or socially awkward would not last long in such a job.

So what do you think of the alternative explanation, that instead of hiring managers not liking you, it's that the actual available jobs are different from what you thought they were?

[jacob]

Did you mean Eastern Europeans in the US? Because at least here in Poland, majority of people have working class / "loser" mentality - they don't expect to rise up above average, and try to find happiness in things like family, tending their garden (on the allotment, few people can afford houses with gardens) or simple interests. It's basically wholesome hobbitland. People aren't obsessed about wealth, because, up to the very latest years, there were few ways to obtain it, so obsessing about it would be futile. It's changing now, but the change is slow, and money-obsessed people gather in a few largest cities, leaving the rest of the country mostly as it were. Contrast with America, which was "the land of opportunity" since inception, which made people feverish with trying to get more, "because it's there to grab, if only they try and work harder/smarter".

I might be generalizing too hard because I mainly come in contact with the money-obsessed people from the largest cities who want to know how ERE can help them get "money, status, and women". That's a strong SD:Orange vibe on the SD:Blue background of hobbits you describe. The US itself is predominantly SD:Orange but more like the water the fish swim in than being outright enthusiastic about it.

[Jean]

@delay
This might be correct, but this is probably not what most young people who start a stem degree assume.
For this resson, I think my advice stay valid.

Edit:
@guitarplayer
I can't wait to tell interviewers in a few time when i'll apply as an engineer again, when they ask me why I worked in care, that a friend told me that working with mentaly disabled people would help me look like I can suffer the foolish coworkers i'll inevitably have around me working for them.

[DutchGirl]

I've often heard from old people: time goes so fast! Suddenly here I am, at age 74 (or 84, or 92). They often feel like life passed them by. They wonder where all that time went. They wished they had done more (or had done other things).

I have heard from some other older people that they are at peace with how their life went. They are thankful for all they got to do and all they got to experience. They still love life and hope to get some more, but if it ends, they are happy with how much of it they got.

So yes, the question of how you spend your limited time on this planet is a valid one. I hope to be one of those people in the second group, some day.

[guitarplayer]

I can't wait to tell interviewers in a few time when i'll apply as an engineer again, when they ask me why I worked in care, that a friend told me that working with mentaly disabled people would help me look like I can suffer the foolish coworkers i'll inevitably have around me working for them.

Yeah but remember the interviewers might be part of that group so you have to do assessment at the very beginning of an interview and it might be you have to act as if you are interviewed by someone with a learning disability. Coincidentally, in my interview for a care position this was literally what happened, was that one of the residents of the care facility had (on purpose) been in the interview asking me questions.

There are some lengthy posts on the forum on how mental ability or its lack are hidden out of immediate sight unlike height, weight etc. It is a skill to be able to assess this ability and act accordingly.

A good general line to that interviewer question that goes well across the board with at worst a neutral response is something along the lines of 'I worked in care to have a direct impact on improving people's lives' - which is correct (if you do it right).

[IlliniDave]

This is a topic I've started giving a lot of thought to, albeit from the perspective of someone whose financial and career concerns are in the past.

During my family years as I look back I was pretty myopic about that. Work was a means of fulfilling a provider role. Then in time after some bumps and an epiphany I entered my retirement run up period I had sort of a hybrid boglehead/MMM/ere meaning I arguably placed too much emphasis on fattening the stash so it turned out life was dominated by working as much as I could stand and recuperating most of he rest of the time. I did give a lot of thought to what I would do with freedom to achieve the state of being I envisioned, but mostly those ideas wound up on lists for "later" (there were a few exceptions).

So my lived experience once early retirement was a conscious goal was a little like d) of the OP list, except I always maintained the attitude that I worked to live rather than lived to work. I worked long hours and made a lot of sacrifices, but there was always a purpose beyond the job itself. I was able to glean a modest degree of satisfaction from the work and work environment, but what kept me hopping out of bed and hitting the grind was making progress on the long game. Fortunately I had enough variety of interests that I was able to find a subset of hobbies and enjoyable activities that I could fit in around the sprint for the finish line that kept me feeling like I had somewhat of a life outside work. They were actually quite important for mental rest and recovery--sort of an active recovery approach. But all that evolved naturally rather than emerging from a script. If I had a superpower it might have been the ability to show up for work and throw myself into it, then go home without letting the job dog my heels, and turn to other interests when off the clock. Otherwise, I probably would have burned out long before achieving much less acting on FI made the agenda.

Now without much in the way of financial worries the challenge is to comb through potential hobbies/activities and put together a palate that tries to optimize across domains. I haven't quite thought through those domains enough to iterate them precisely. One branch is physical/mental/emotional health and resilience (I believe those three are very intertwined, and they are foundational). Another is to continue to feel alive and interested/curious. The third is to cultivate enough ongoing contentedness to maintain a sustainable lifestyle. Those probably have overlap, and individually can probably be broken down further. When it comes to how to spend time, I'll measure the potential of candidate time uses to contribute in those areas, look for multiple birds per stone opportunities, and try to limit time that doesn't do much for me.

If I had this understanding back during my career days I might have done things somewhat differently. Or not. It's a challenge to wrangle this into anything that would resemble advice because I believe it's an extremely individual thing. A person in early stages of the process might be well served to consider the candidate domains I mentioned above and add long-term financial health to them, decide what's important, let things shake out from there, then find ways to support goals within the less important and/or urgent areas on an ongoing basis. They are all apt to be important somewhere along the way. "Correct" is relative. Many approaches are viable. Changing course along the way is allowed. I'd also argue that while a decade or more remains before a goal can reasonably be achieved, there's something to be said for keeping some breadth to one's approach. Take care of mind and body, maintain some degree of social connection, be able to state what your purpose in life is (better yet, purposes), experiment to learn at what point you begin to transition from frugal and efficient to feeling miserable and deprived in terms of lifestyle, and where you can bring your "retired"/ere future into the present. I'd argue all of those are good investments of time, albeit not directly related to the task of how best to accumulate the capital needed to for whatever success looks like. I was unable to align my passions, interests, and aptitudes, into a career where I could be my occupation, but that didn't stop me.

[jacob]

I just realized that what I'm suggesting with the talent+employment+interest is a functional way to realize an answer to 3/4 of the Japanese concept of Ikigai. Google that and more will come up in terms of Venn overlaps. To complete the method for Ikigai, just add a step 4) Cross out everything from the remaining list that doesn't "help the world".

I suggest keeping the order I recommended. Prioritizing "helping the world" is largely thankless work and easy to burn/brown out on.