Does your FI journey feel like living a double life?
I think the normal connotation associated with living a double life is negative. The stigma attached to it is that you are hiding something and there is shame and deception lingering under the surface if you can’t live an authentic truthful life out in the open.
Yet, sometimes we need to live a double life to survive.
This has absolutely been the case in my professional life with my sobriety and the stigma attached to addiction.
We like to talk big and act like the world is a better place than it really is. It feels good to chat in public about how far we’ve come since slavery and woman’s rights. Damn, isn’t America just great again with these partisan politicians?
But behind closed doors we know how things really work: judgment and stigmatism still run rampant in the workplace.
And for these reasons, I keep my past addiction, guarded under lock and key.
Whenever I’m asked in a professional setting about why I don’t drink, I don’t lie. I tell the truth. Just not all of it.
In my job, I’m a white-collar guy in a blue-collar industry. My company is still dominated by men and deals get gone late at night over drinks at the bar. If you don’t imbibe, then you don’t get a seat at the table. Hence, why I try so hard to make sure I’m included even though I don’t drink (and it can be done, you just have to put in a shit ton of effort and be very strategic).
I’ll tell you a quick story about how it can go South real quick if you aren’t careful…
My previous company was a small private outfit under one owner. Three weeks into my new role, the owner gets us all together for a management team lunch. I’m super excited because this is my first real lunch out with the boys.
We go to a local pizza place that the owner is tight with. As we order food, the president yells, “hey new guy, Q-FI, what are we drinking for lunch?”
Hesitantly I reply, “Well… I usually just drink water.”
“Water!” He laughs. “What else do you drink besides water? What do you think these guys want to drink?”
Now everyone is looking at me. Sheepishly I pipe up, “Pitchers of Coke?”
(I’ll defend myself here – I had just come from 10 years at a corporate job, so drinking during lunch was one of the last things on my mind and I didn’t think would even be permissible.)
The owner just shakes his head at me. “He doesn’t get it guys,” he says to the group, almost mocking me. Then he points to the guy to my right, “Hey Steve, what are we drinking for lunch?”
“Peroni’s!” Steve shouts, winking at me.
“How about the rest of you,” the owner asks, as he raises his arms up. “Peroni’s all around?”
Everyone cheers in response but me. Then the owner singles me out, “And how about you Q-FI? A Peroni good?”
“Thanks,” I tell him. “But water will just be fine.”
You could hear a pin drop in the room after I said that. Ten ra-ra guys on the management team and I’m the only one who wasn’t drinking. I tried to play it off, but I’m not going to lie, it was one of the toughest and most awkward professional settings I have ever been in. I wanted to run out that door and stick my head in the sand. Regardless of how well I kept my cool, I could feel the alienation from everyone else at the table.
And it devastated me.
This was my first job back from rehab. All I wanted to do was fit in and be part of the team… just be one of the guys.
And just like that, I was on the outside looking in. And it didn’t matter what I did after that, I was never included in any team lunches again. I had been branded the scarlet letter of sobriety even though there was nothing I could have done to avoid it.
Like I said before, we like to think the world is a better place than it really is.
Nine months later I had found a new job at another company.
That year was a painful learning experience. But sometimes pain can be a filter. It helps you see what really matters in life. Acts as a blessing in disguise.
Now, that was an unfortunate event and a unique circumstance. But it woke me up real quick that if I was still going to be a player in my industry I would have to live a double life. And that’s fine, because that’s the way it has to be. I understand that I don’t make the rules and it’s up to me to adapt.
But the more I think about it, the more similarities I see between how I hide my past and how I am pursuing FI.
Because money is like addiction in a lot of ways. People have their views about it and often are uncomfortable discussing it out in the open. They pass their judgment by how things look rather than asking. So frequently, how we use money and our personal views on it are misunderstood.
Plus, let’s be honest, when it comes to talking about money, people get weird. Things can get awkward real quick if you aren’t careful.
I think the same thing happens with FI. You’re practicing something that isn’t popular and not widely accepted by the masses. So it becomes easier to hide it rather than explaining to everyone else why you aren’t crazy.
We sweep our plans under the rug and don’t divulge to our personal friends and family what is truly going on in our lives. In a real sense, it can feel like we are living a double life. We connect and find our community online, but I think that it is safe to say for most of us, we do not have a strong FI support group surrounding us in real life. Yet, unlike addiction, FI is a positive force in our lives. It shouldn’t be something hidden, but rather embraced.
As the FIRE movement progresses in its popularity and scope, maybe things will change. But as the world stands right now, we are the outliers. We still hide in the shadows.
Yet it doesn’t have to be this way. Not everything in life needs to be Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde…
-Q-FI
So how about it? How open are you with your future plans? Do you put everything out in the open, or are you like the rest of us, living a double life?
Another good one Q-FI. While I can’t say I actively hid my FI plans, I certainly never brought them up or discussed them openly, particularly in a professional setting. It was purely a function of not wanting to explain or clarify FI with people who a) wouldn’t get it and or b) wouldn’t believe it. I’m also pretty hesitant to discuss money in general even if I wasn’t pursuing FI, so maybe that was a factor as well.
I still don’t like talking about it for the same reasons now that I stopped working. Since most folks generally react with incredulity and/or resentment, when asked, I just tell people I work from home doing consulting. It’s less of leading a double life and more a capitulation to convenience for me.
I’m pretty much the same as you MF. Not much value in explaining things to people who wouldn’t get it anyway. I also usually avoid money conversations unless directly asked. And when I finally do get to FI, I’ll probably just say that I’m leaving my job to pursue other interests/business opportunities and keep it vague. Unfortunately, for me, I still have plenty of time to craft my segue… hahaha.
You worked with some real morons. In my career almost half of my coworkers did not drink. They were never excluded from any events and often had the top jobs. There was far more pressure not to drink. And you certainly could not drink at lunch, that would get you fired.
This is very interesting to me Steve. Because in my industry it is the opposite – you are the anomaly if you don’t drink. I’d be curious how drinking consumption per industry actually breaks down…
But I agree with you, the emotional intelligence level was very low at this company. Hence, why I moved on very quickly to my next job.
Well, I lived deep in the Bible Belt and I’m a boomer, much has changed. But still, in a highly dangerous chemical plant environment everyone was subject to random drug testing, even the head Fred, so no drinking at lunch.