Nomadic-ERE Year 5 - Wanderlust Prevails

Where are you and where are you going?
zbigi
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Re: Semi-ERE Year 3 - Wanderlust Prevails

Post by zbigi »

Jin+Guice wrote:
Fri Jul 30, 2021 9:14 pm
Working a job also limits future earning potential. It's weird to me that there is not an extremely successful FIRE entrepreneur. Maybe it's MMM? I'm surprised someone didn't free up all that time and have the major mindset shift to not want to work all the time, only to start a business doing something cool that they then figure out how to delegate. No one ever got really rich working for someone else. To me this is just one more reason why you should figure out how to do cool shit.
I suspect that maybe people who go for the FIRE route are not really into working that much? Because that's what FIRE really promises you - freedom from compulsory work, forever. If you're not really excited by that, what would you pursue FIRE in the first place. That may be why the entrepreneurial types don't go after FIRE and just start their businesses right away.

On a more general note - lately, I've realized that ERE principles perfectly reflect Jacob's idiosyncrasies - becoming quickly bored after attaining competence in something, enjoying mastering things, not having any interests which cost any significant amounts of money, being a heavy introvert (this means you can live anywhere in the world, as you're not limited to living near people you're attached to), enjoying "toughing out" uncomfortable situations. For such person, ERE fits like a glove. However, the vast majority of people are not like Jacob, which IMO explains the failure of ERE to pick up more mainstream following much better than Jacob's self-diagnosed "failure to be a good communicator". It also explains why FIRE has exploded - it much better fits the needs and preferences of a typical person. A typical person would rather spend X more years in a job (which they don't hate as much as Jacob did, because boredom and pointlessness of job is not as terrible for them) than quit early and spend rest of their lives learning how to invest/make jams/fix clothes/.... They hate learning practical stuff and expending effort in general, and they prefer to minimize it over their lifespan - which makes FIRE rational choice for them.

Jin+Guice
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Re: Semi-ERE Year 3 - Wanderlust Prevails

Post by Jin+Guice »

@zbigi: I agree that the point for most people is to get out of work. The question will inevitably shift from "freedom from" to "freedom to" and I'm surprised that someone has started a very successful business. I'm not surprised that everyone doesn't run out and start a business.


I also agree that ERE necessarily reflects its creator. I agree that the closer your preferences are to Jacob's, the easier it is to "do ERE" because you can more closely follow his example. However, I think it's a flexible enough form that one need not have Jacob's traits to pursue it. To me, FIRE is kind of a narrow viewpoint. It condenses the expected life pathway. ERE is possibility. FIRE asks what would happen if you played the game a little smarter. ERE asks what would happen if you played a different game. I don't think it's necessarily required to learn how to make your own jam or repair stuff. It's not possible or desirable to learn how to literally do everything yourself, so you get to pick and chose what interests you pursue. Once you escape the frame of the comparative advantage of doing something you would never chose to do because you are receive the highest compensation for it, and examine possible pursuits through the lens of fulfilling your purpose and spirit through meaningful, creative and helpful activities, the efficient financial capital accumulation arguments stop making a lot of sense.

I think people are more willing to accept FIRE because it is closer to what they were expecting to do. FIRE is an easy sell, you don't really have to change that much if you've ever made a budget or saved up for a big purchase. I don't think ERE (above WL5) is appealing unless you are disgruntled. The crowd I'm more surprised hasn't gotten into ERE is the voluntary simplicity/ hippie crowd. Attempting to live outside the bounds of industrialized consumerism is much more popular amongst this crowd and ERE provides a sustainable and enjoyable way to do it.

zbigi
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Re: Semi-ERE Year 3 - Wanderlust Prevails

Post by zbigi »

Jin+Guice wrote:
Sat Jul 31, 2021 9:15 am
I don't think it's necessarily required to learn how to make your own jam or repair stuff. It's not possible or desirable to learn how to literally do everything yourself, so you get to pick and chose what interests you pursue. Once you escape the frame of the comparative advantage of doing something you would never chose to do because you are receive the highest compensation for it, and examine possible pursuits through the lens of fulfilling your purpose and spirit through meaningful, creative and helpful activities, the efficient financial capital accumulation arguments stop making a lot of sense.
I suspect most people are simply averse to effort ("lazy") to a large degree, and thus are mostly interested in things that are hardly productive. I am a prime examples of this, and my main interests are: reading, gaming, discussing interesting things with people and talking walks. None of them have serious potential to be monetized. Anything else, incl. cleaning, cooking, building stuff, coding etc. etc. are basically chores that compete with work in terms of unattractiveness and thus comparative advantage very much applies to them.
Tangentially, I think there's a problem with people strongly relying on Meyer-Briggs in this forum, as it misses an important component of human psyche - industriousness. People can be INTx, but if they don't really enjoy effort (they're "low industriousness" in terms of Big 5 personality model), they'll prefer to spend their mental energies on exploring esoteric subjects or building empires in video games, rather than doing shit in the real world.

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Re: Semi-ERE Year 3 - Wanderlust Prevails

Post by 2Birds1Stone »

August 1, 2021
NW = 36.3X TTM Spending
WR = 2.75%
June Savings Rate = 77.7%

@Axel, I was in a very similar boat where it was only loosely incorporated. For a while I leaned toward J+G's way of thinking that I'm not responsible for someone else's financial situation. Realizing that this is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with (or at the very least the foreseeable future if you're not into the whole happily ever after idea), I don't necessarily feel responsible.....but desire to improve it drastically while the juice is worth the squeeze.

@J+G, I have to think more about your two posts to fully respond, but one thing that needs clarification is the assumptions around the hard numbers. With my own SWR in runaway mode, I'm essentially able to save/invest 100% of my after tax/tax deferred income from my job, which most weeks takes up maybe 25-40 hours of my time and is done from my dinner table or hammock. With that kind of savings rate, we could go from $0 to FI (@25X annual spending) in ~7 years. We're not starting from scratch though. Right now we're probably ~18-24 months from that 3% benchmark as a household unit. So to me it's worth a bit of sacrifice now to be able to make DW feel secure enough to pull the plug herself.

Sure I could let her continue plodding along in her career for the next 5-7 years, but then we would miss out on doing a lot of things that have the potential to be way more enjoyable/rewarding/or downright possible in our 30's and by the time I'm in my 40's might lack the physical health/stamina, the desire, or the optionality to do so (even for reasons out of our control, a la pandemic).

I recently read a good book, 'Die With Zero" by Bill Perkins. Bill is not an ERE role model by any means, and the book would probably not resonate on many levels with the crowd here. But the whole premise is that life is short, our health and longevity are not guaranteed, and most people delay doing the things they really want to do in life until their "golden years" which either never come, or by the time they do these people don't have the desire, health, etc to do the things they dreamed of over their lifetime. His solution (and this book is really written for people who have financial abundance) is to spend down your assets/spend your income once you have enough slack in your financial system. And your goal should be to leverage your assets to do things in every season of life, that may not be possible/desirable in the next season. It's sort of a YOLO message, but the most valuable exercise he suggested, was taking the remaining years of your life, and breaking them down into either 5 or 10 year "buckets" and really being honest with yourself, if money were no object, what would you want to do in the next 5 years, and the 5 years after that, etc etc.

Well a ton of the shit I would like to do in the later half of my 30's, I'de love to do with my wife, and some of them, I would like to do as soon as possible. We both went through this exercise individually, as not to taint each others individual dreams, goals, choices by influencing them with our own. We then sat down and compared lists......well a bunch of the shit we want to do, in the next 5-10 years especially, does cost some coin, and requires us not to be tied down by jobs. So we are definitely not going to lock ourselves into any prolonged work stint.

I'm warming up to the idea of pulling the plug again soon. For me, right now 10 months looks to be ideal. I decided to screw the vesting schedule and associated golden handcuffs.......DW may work one year past that, since she has some personal career goals that can be reached if she gets promoted at her current company. If she doesn't, we're probably going to take of on another RTW trip in May/June of next year.

@Zbigi, I have a lot more thoughts to get to later, but we have a busy weekend planned!

Happy Saturday, y'all.

Jin+Guice
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Re: Semi-ERE Year 3 - Wanderlust Prevails

Post by Jin+Guice »

@zbigi: I hear you. I used to want to spend all of my time doing music and any time away from that was viewed as a loss. The number one activity I still do is work on music. I am not well paid for this, and while it does occasionally produce a show or an album, it's not something I need to live my day-to-day life.

I used to deal with life's necessities by largely eliminating them. I had no house to clean. My clothes were old and had mostly been given to me or acquired at the salvation army. My only shoes were my running shoes. Food, the only thing I couldn't figure out how to escape, was outsourced by eating only meals I didn't cook. And my god, I am so so lazy.

It wasn't until recently that I started wanting to do laundry by hand and grow my own food. It does take some time away from music. If my goal were to actually become completely self-reliant asap, it would consume all my time. As it is now, it takes very little time. A few hours a day at most. Actively engaging with home production does make me feel more a part of life and the world. There's something nice about making a home-cooked meal or fixing something on your bike that I just don't get from another hour in the spine mines.

I'm not sure I would've explored this path if I was able to find a career I enjoyed for 30 years or thought that our society was run extremely well and had an acceptable degree of equity. If I didn't think we were murdering the environment that made us. I think it takes a degree of unhappiness to want to change.

There are also a lot of false efficiency gains in the comparative advantage lens. Once you see the multi-dimensionality of the problem it's also more complex. Eating out is highly time inefficient. I do laundry by hand in a sink everyday it's sunny out. This is time inefficient compared to a machine, but it's actually more enjoyable to me than doing laundry all at once. Folding 4 clothes is kind of fun. Folding even a minimalist 20 gets boring. I also don't own a washer or dryer, and now I don't need to worry about getting one or dealing with them when they break. Anyway, there are a million little examples of how supposed efficiency gains are either inefficient or factorize work into large boring chunks, rather than allowing the fun of inefficiency.

I'm not going to tell you not to do the things you love in order to hand-knit a scarf. I will tell you that home-producing stuff is more fun than it initially sounds, especially with friends, there are a lot of ways to tie it to your current hobbies/ interests and that I have become interested in things I never thought I would be. I see some possibility already. A lot of my time "producing" stuff is spent researching, aka reading and talking to people about fun topics they are interested in that I am trying to learn about.



@2b1s: Thanks for clarifying. For me, 1-2 years is a worthwhile amount of time to do something not that hard to achieve financial freedom using the tried and true FIRE path. Not that everyone needs to do what I do, but if I were personally in this position I would do it (the work would have to be easy and/or fun and not all-consuming though). I also think that working a job while you figure out what to do next can be a great idea. The potential to slide back into old habits is there, but more dollars do usually equal more freedom, you keep the resume a bit fresher and you hopefully get some inspiration for the next phase of your life.

2Birds1Stone wrote:
Sat Jul 31, 2021 10:48 am
the whole premise is that life is short, our health and longevity are not guaranteed, and most people delay doing the things they really want to do in life until their "golden years" which either never come, or by the time they do these people don't have the desire, health, etc to do the things they dreamed of over their lifetime.
Ok, this is sort of my whole point with semi-ERE. Something ERE has done for me is allow me to come at things sideways to extract the human message from the industrial capital message.

Quick example: I used to be a really angry teenager, and at 12 I thought blasting Rage Against the Machine in my white-washed suburb was really doing something. Then I realized that those records were made by a multi-national corporation, made in air-conditioned studios using millions of dollars, printed on unsustainable plastic and that consuming music from a living room in the United States wasn't going to solve global poverty. Later I realized that what I really wanted was someone to explain to me a way of life that was heavily marketed to me as the only moral way of life but was clearly only promoting depression, anxiety, loneliness, and disillusionment in my life ("they say save and you say "how much?", you're brain dead, you got a fucking lentil in your head").

Anyway, I think that dude's book sounds like I'd agree with it, but I'm sure he's spending 10x as much as I am to do basically the same shit he insists you need money to do. I think it's important to do things in the cycle of life where they are most fun/ accessible and not wait for some future day to do the things you want to. Money would truly be no object if you didn't use it at all.

2Birds1Stone
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Re: Semi-ERE Year 3 - Wanderlust Prevails

Post by 2Birds1Stone »

This community is effin awesome. Just sayin'

J+G, I reread your posts a few times and appreciate the counterview you bring to the discussion. There's no doubt that I've started sliding back to WL5/6 thinking after being firmly in WL6 land for quite some time.

As I was typing this response, I noticed you simultaneously posted again, so I want to share a few thoughts.

ERE was a discovery I accidentally made while pursuing a much more traditional "how to retire early" FIRE path. At first the concept seemed a bit crazy, and even the forums appeared to be mostly people I had a hard time understanding and/or relating too due to how far they took things. It was a slow evolution, but over time as I naturally progressed through the WL's, the ERE concepts and their practical application just made more and more sense. The first time I really read the ERE book, it was interesting, and provided the motivation to try to optimize things further. Over the next several years, as I continued accumulating $ and passed the traditional FIRE manifesto math (save 25X and live on a permanent vacation) in January 2019, I became much more interested in systems thinking and yields & flows. We took things to the next level and reduced our consumption to next to nothing outside of housing and insurance. It didn't feel like a sacrifice at all. It opened my eyes to how little we need to lead a satisfying life.

I also self admittedly won the career lottery. At the age of 27, I managed sans college degree, to land a job in a big tech company doing an entry level sales role. I realized it wasn't particularly hard work, and people seem to be really well paid, even with mediocre performance. I busted my ass in that job from 2014-2017. This resulting in two promotions over a 3 year period, and more pay than I knew what to do with. It felt like entering a cheat code in a video game. We were living at 150% of the federal poverty level with a 6-figure household income. In 2017, some things happened at my company, which resulted in me more or less getting paid a salary to work 3-4 hours a week, for nearly 8 months. When I tried to quit, they threw more money at me to stay. I left anyway after another several months, and got another job. This one was for shits and giggles, and they paid me even more money. I worked hard for the first 6 months, then realized the place was a complete shit show, and the company was doing shady things. I stopped working, but stayed on the payroll. I made some ballsy moves, knowing I could get fired at any time. It made things much better. There were month long periods without doing much of anything besides answering a few emails a day. I tried to take a leave of absence due to some family health issues, left country first.....better to ask for forgiveness than permission. When I asked, there was no reply. My overlord got fired. When I came back to "work", it was basically garden leave. After several more months I engineered my layoff......and left to travel the world in the midst of a global pandemic.

Currently my relationship with w*rk is pretty healthy. I know very well that I don't need this (or any other) job by a long shot. The pay is insane compared to the time commitment right now. Under normal non-pandemic conditions, I would be required to do 50% business travel, or essentially 2-3 days a week, by car, plane, etc. This would be miserable, and I wouldn't last very long. The previous gig I had prior to the 2019 escape was like this, travel all the time. It sucked, it took up soooooo much time. Because once you add up the hours worked, and the time away from home, even the high pay was hardly worth it. But when that sunk in, I had no problem leveraging the FU$ to dictate my own terms.

When we traveled in 2020, we didn't use money to solve many of our problems. Social/human capital was largely leveraged, a great example was acquiring a bicycle in Portugal when the lockdown first started in March of 2020. Sure, there was ultimately an exchange of funds (a la Ego's recently revived rental thread), and I purchased then resold a used bike......but having someone help me in a country/city I was unfamiliar with, during a crisis time was social capital. That friendship is alive to this day, thanks to modern technology, and now DW and I have a small social net in Lisbon. Very similar situations throughout much of 2020 resulted in thriving un significantly less than 1 JAFI/person.

Can't wait to get back to the WL6 mental space, and start focusing on it more. The current job is definitely prohibitive in the sense that I can't fully commit to ERE dirtbagging, or some other non-normal lifestyle.....but it's temporary.

The more I hang around these boards, the more inspired I am to introspect on whether we're living the life we want to live.

For the time being, it makes sense to keep plugging away for a lil while.......until we can think of what we would rather be doing.

PS - I agree about your travel point, it surely will get old/alienating after a while. We have a couple of trips we want to do though, and I think once we get it out of our system, figuring out where to hunker down and build a home base will be a huge part of our life plan. We both put it in our second 5 year bucket, which means we'll likely be largely nomadic over the next 4-5 years until we figure out which continent/country/city etc checks the most boxes for a permanent location.

/rambles

Scott 2
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Re: Semi-ERE Year 3 - Wanderlust Prevails

Post by Scott 2 »

I appreciate you continuing to update past the FI threshold. There's too few that stick it out. The transition period is especially interesting IMO.

2Birds1Stone
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Re: Semi-ERE Year 3 - Wanderlust Prevails

Post by 2Birds1Stone »

@Scott, oh yea....so many people disappear. I too enjoy following others who are working through the transition, even though I haven't commented in your thread, I've been keenly following along since you pulled the plug.

To be honest with myself.......

Reread what I posted yesterday, and realized that while my job looks great on paper right now, my relationship with work is NOT healthy. While I do get away with putting in reasonably light hours and the pay is high......the pressure to perform and stress/dread of not meeting those expectations hangs over me like a cloud much of the time. Took a lesson from WRC's post on taking note of mental state over the weekend, and realized a few things. While the weekends are a nice distraction from work, when I really introspect on how I feel about having these overlords, it sucks. It definitely doesn't help my anxiety, and I think there is still some residual burnout from pre-sabbatical days. That Sunday night/Monday morning dread is back.....

Not sure what I'll do about it in the short term. Feel a little bit trapped due to some personal relationships that went out on a limb to get my foot in the door here, and a normal person should be grateful for the opportunity......

Jin+Guice
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Re: Semi-ERE Year 3 - Wanderlust Prevails

Post by Jin+Guice »

What if you imagined your job how you wanted it to be? Is it possible to let yourself be lazy? Can you do a good job inside of constraints you set, rather than letting them set the constraints?

I think having to do something also just sucks. I knew I had to clean a kitchen this morning and I was definitely less motivated to get out of bed than yesterday when I knew I just had to come on here and respond to people.

Scott 2
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Re: Semi-ERE Year 3 - Wanderlust Prevails

Post by Scott 2 »

I continue to reflect on why my work situation ultimately collapsed. I just finished reading this book on burnout:

https://www.dce.ndsu.nodak.edu/otlweb/b ... ess-cycle/

The best parts are summarized in the article. I don't recommend the book. For me, the framework highlights three failure points:

1. I failed to separate my stress cycle from my stressors. Covid hit, taking away my tools to close stress cycles, while adding additional cycles.

2. I failed to adjust my expectations (monitor) according to the new reality, or employ any mitigating strategies when those expectations were continually missed.

3. That lead to a sense of learned helplessness, which snowballed the first two and also tanked my home life.

Not to say the work environment was right for me, but the collapse was avoidable, IMO.

jacob
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Re: Semi-ERE Year 3 - Wanderlust Prevails

Post by jacob »

@all,

On the subject of burnout, I think we need to distinguish between two very different causes. Not much has been written yet. Ten+ years ago, when I was dealing with it, there was almost nothing written. There's a bit more now, but it's still mixed up.

Traditional "burnout" comes from "too much stress" and typically recommended solutions are "breaks" that take the mind off of work such as vacation, mindfulness, yoga, setting hours, ... almost always written in a way to make you a more effective worker ant. These all fall under the "work life balance" mindset.

There's also "loss of faith"-type burnout where the problem is not stress but almost the opposite---one eventually begins to see one's career/effort as meaningless. This is more of an existential(ist) problem.
I've written more about it here: viewtopic.php?p=95347#p95347

The first one is recoverable. The second is likely permanently sunk or at least I don't know how to come back from it. It's hard to unknow perspectives and equally hard to transcend them.

PS: The same thing can happen with being FIRE'd. Fortunately it hasn't happened to me. But one's post-work perspective and plans definitely need to expand beyond "traveling" because very few retirees manage to find that meaningfully fulfilling for more than a few years.
PPS: Also see the large number of freedom-from/to (positive/negative freedom) discussions. Is what you're retiring-to sustainable?

RoamingFrancis
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Re: Semi-ERE Year 3 - Wanderlust Prevails

Post by RoamingFrancis »

@jacob I would disagree with your characterization of mindfulness/yoga as breaks that take the mind off of work. While certainly “McMindfulness” is a problem, I believe deep and long-term contemplative practice is an extremely transformative experience.

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Ego
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Re: Semi-ERE Year 3 - Wanderlust Prevails

Post by Ego »

2Birds1Stone wrote:
Mon Aug 02, 2021 7:33 am
... my relationship with work is NOT healthy. While I do get away with putting in reasonably light hours and the pay is high......the pressure to perform and stress/dread of not meeting those expectations hangs over me like a cloud much of the time.

I have a friend who went to prison for most of his thirties for some unspecified felony. He has mentioned more than once how happy he is that his felony precluded him from getting back into the rat race. Nobody hires a felon for serious jobs. He had no choice but to be resourceful in solving the problem of money and he loves the person he has become as a result. It would be great if there was some way to measure that, "How much do you like the person you are becoming as a result of this job?"

Career suicide is not so bad if the alternative is suicide by career.

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Re: Semi-ERE Year 3 - Wanderlust Prevails

Post by AxelHeyst »

RoamingFrancis wrote:
Mon Aug 02, 2021 3:54 pm
@jacob I would disagree with your characterization of mindfulness/yoga as breaks that take the mind off of work. While certainly “McMindfulness” is a problem, I believe deep and long-term contemplative practice is an extremely transformative experience.
Corporations don't recommend anything other than McMindfulness, and it's presented as a band-aid solution. What Jacob is saying is that corporations typically recommend that you take five minute breaks every once in a while to "do yoga" or "breathe deeply", often in a slickly designed infographic poster thingie they post in the break room. The problem isn't that yoga/mindfulness aren't deep, it's what corporate productivity culture does to the idea of yoga/mindfulness. You'd likely be horrified to witness the sort of "ally" corporations are to yoga/meditation practices. ("With friends like these, who needs enemies?")

classical_Liberal
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Re: Semi-ERE Year 3 - Wanderlust Prevails

Post by classical_Liberal »

2Birds1Stone wrote:
Mon Aug 02, 2021 7:33 am
oh yea....so many people disappear.
Yeah we're selfish dicks to some extent.

OTOH staying mostly away from FI/ERE related content for an extended period of time shifts focus back into actually living life for life's sake. Instead of constant focus on whatever obtuse FI/ERE progress we thought was important. In my case burning bridges probably wasn't the best thing to do, but it was needed to get me away from constantly identifying my life through the ERE/FIRE lense. Although I do miss this community, lack of regular participation has really helped me move on from scarcity mindset in terms of </= WL5. So maybe large scale disappearing from the the FIRE sphere is a common not because of abandonment, but rather as progression.

This all leads up to telling @2B1S to consider a hiatus from FI/ERE related stuff to get your mind focused on what is important to you.

In any event. I apologize to anyone reading this journal who was offended by what I did. It was the right thing for me.

Re other 2B1S's musings.

Have you considered supporting your wife's accumulation of financial capital in any way other than directly saving more financial capital yourself? IOW, is there something you can do to contribute to her career, or make it easier for her to pursue her career, that has nothing to do with you making money directly? On this note, do you know for certain your wife wants to eventually not work. Is work something she wants/needs in her life for happiness? is it something you need occasionally?

I'll double down on semi-ERE by saying I wish I had less money right now. I have only worked in a traditional way for 3 of the last 18 months. I don't think that's enough for optimal c_L happiness, but I can't really motivated myself to do more than that because I lack for nothing enough to get me to do something like starting a business, or filling out that application on my kitchen table to deal blackjack a couple nights a week for the extra social fun. I really think the more financially stable we feel, the less likely it is we will take up any interests that require commitment to anyone other than ourselves or immediate friends/family. This is potentially a burden, not always an advantage IMO.
jacob wrote:
Mon Aug 02, 2021 1:02 pm
Traditional "burnout" comes from "too much stress" ...

There's also "loss of faith"-type burnout where the problem is not stress but almost the opposite---one eventually begins to see one's career/effort as meaningless.
This is extremely important. I'm at loss of faith burnout in my most recent career. But it's also reasonable to take this one step further and feel this type of burnout in life generally. I think some people here have it, including me, to varying degrees. I mean, the world is a crappy place and many of the systems in the world are totally broken. This is part of what motivates so many here to reach FI or a higher WL ERE. So that we do not have to deal with the broken system in which we have loss of faith burnout. Complete FI, although completely dependent on that system for it's continuation, interestingly, seems to provide one with a feeling of independence from it. IOW, one can live outside the system, but still requires that system to remain independent from it. This is counterproductive in WL advancement, and creates the WL5-6 feedback loop so many seem to have. ie, I need more money to stay "independent" but money is "dependence" on that exact system from which I have a loss of faith or at least "existential disagreement". Talk about some cognitive dissonance...Escape from this conundrum requires one to ignore it and earn more security through money, start to take a different path (ERE WL increase which takes many forms with great examples here), or to try to work within the system to carve out your niche of change to fix the burnout (living life on life's terms above was a way of saying this for me). Maybe more? No matter which way is chosen, too much money can be both a motivational hindrance and a "door opener". It all depends.

Anyway, it was good to read some updates from you @2B1S! I still hope we get to meet someday!

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Re: Semi-ERE Year 3 - Wanderlust Prevails

Post by Western Red Cedar »

classical_Liberal wrote:
Tue Aug 03, 2021 3:04 pm
In any event. I apologize to anyone reading this journal who was offended by what I did. It was the right thing for me.
I've got nothing but love for you brother. Your writing/thinking here changed my life in a positive way. I hope you and your family are well.

@2B1S

After reading through the recent entries I realize I'm still pretty solidly planted in WL 5 territory. It is psychologically challenging to not grab the easy money when it is right there.

Part of me thinks that WL progression gets more difficult with a partner and/or kids because one needs to balance personal goals/desires with familial goals and desires. It isn't as easy to take big risks when you have a family to support. But, there are plenty of examples here that discount that perspective. I'll elaborate a bit more in my journal so I don't take up too much bandwidth here.

Anyway, I appreciate you working through all of this as it helps pave the way for those who are a couple steps behind.

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Re: Semi-ERE Year 3 - Wanderlust Prevails

Post by Frugalchicos »

@Classical Liberal

Good to hear from you. I second WRC, I always appreciated your wisdom and nice words

@2B1S

Buddy, as you said, you don’t need a job. We are just playing a game right now. My suggestion is to take this time to plan your next move and put the cherry on the cake so you guys can leave the work force for good.

2Birds1Stone
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Location: Earth

Re: Semi-ERE Year 3 - Wanderlust Prevails

Post by 2Birds1Stone »

@J+G, that's what I'm going to try to do for the next X months. It worked in the past, so there has to be some hope that it can here as well.

@Scott, thanks for linking the article. It was a good read and very relevant.

@Jacob, great discussion in the linked thread. There have definitely been points in my career where type 1 burnout was mainly the problem, and as you pointed out, a "break" usually solved them. Now it definitely feels like type 2, a combination of realizing the system we are part of and game most choose to play is rigged and not really worth playing.....and also having tasted true freedom for over a year makes it hard to go back and "fake it".

Wrt the retire to/from piece, and the sustainability of my own post work situation, that's really hard to predict. The travel stuff is short term in the grand scheme of life. I can see designing a good life that doesn't incorporate a w-2 style commitment. Similar to Zbigi, none of my hobbies are really monetizable at the moment, but once I'm based in an area more permanently, there are an endless number of possibilities that I can see being able to leverage, if not to earn money, then to exchange value for different value, cutting need on financial system all together. This was happening in 2019/2020 and led to WL6 thinking and actions.

@c_L really nice to see you pop in and share your thoughts again. I wasn't calling you out in any way :)

The period where I feel the most regression in WL happened was when I was largely away from the forums for a few months. This place is a breath of fresh air and motivation when it comes to lifestyle design and growing some bigger "balls" wrt lifestyle choices that may be further on the fringes of society......less screentime in general might be on the horizon...

There have been many ideas in my head over the years on how to help DW. I think in the future some of those other possibilities exist, especially once we hunker down in an area more permanently. Right now the best tool I have is a high earning potential for the next 10 months, and that's enough to make a pretty big impact for the short term so we'll roll with it.

We are definitely going to cross paths sooner than later.

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Seppia
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Re: Semi-ERE Year 3 - Wanderlust Prevails

Post by Seppia »

Great discussion plus a bonus cameo!
I don’t have much to add to what’s already been said, other than: don’t overthink things, you went back to work because it made sense, if you feel like hanging in for a few extra bucks there’s nothing wrong with it in my opinion.

Similar to investing, I think the best approach here is the one you feel like you can keep. Quitting and feeling miserable because you gave up so much money makes as little sense as killing yourself on a job you hate and don’t need.

2Birds1Stone
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Joined: Thu Nov 19, 2015 11:20 am
Location: Earth

Re: Semi-ERE Year 3 - Wanderlust Prevails

Post by 2Birds1Stone »

Seppia, you're often the voice of reason here and I appreciate your counter-perspectives.

Since cleansing the journal of hard $#'s I haven't shared too much of the financial planning side, and that was often one of those things that was helpful to get out of my head and on "paper", and if others are like me, some enjoy seeing real world examples of costs, income, etc.

Axel wrote in his journal about having the "perfect amount of money" to design a lifestyle that offers enough freedom and slack in the system to do what he wants, but not enough to get lazy and rely solely on capital. The linked blog post on the front page of the ERE blog got me thinking more about my own motivation and choices. When looking at multiples of expenses, we're really darn close....4-5yrs in cash outside of retirement accounts, and 12-15yrs in investments within retirement accounts. I have intrinsic motivation to do so many things, but working for money is not one of them....I suppose by it's very definition.

I need to mull over some things. Speaking with my grandfather yesterday made me long for the homeland pretty badly. He's not getting any younger, and more or less told me that without socialization, there's not much reason left to live.

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