My mind is refreshed… but my body is broken.
I just completed my third leg of my 2019 Spartan Trifecta – a Spartan Beast (13 miles and 30+ obstacles over zig-zagging ankle-rolling terrain) – with my wife up in Los Olivos, CA yesterday.
It was beautiful terrain running up and down those verdant green rolling hills that the CA central coast has to offer. And perfect weather: a pristine 68 degrees with scattered clouds in a sky bluer than an alpine lake.
But my body is paying for it today. I feel like each of my limbs was cut into a thousand pieces and then stitched back together. Nothing works right, but the pain was worth it. The clearness of thought and the budding sense of accomplishment I woke up with this morning can’t be beat. I have a new spring in my step. The world is my oyster.
And that got me to thinking:
Achieving FI, can be like being given a second life with endless possibilities.
When we were driving home this morning to LA, we hit that long stretch of highway down the 101 from Santa Barbara to Ventura where the coast abuts the ocean and all you can do is see for miles and miles of open water. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect, not a cloud in the sky and the sun sparkled as it caught the water, like thousands of diamonds strewn out across the distant horizon. It’s days like these why the West Coast and Southern California will always be home.
The familiar sight brought back a flood of memories from when I had done this drive countless times in my undergraduate days at UCSB. I always remembered staring out over the ocean and just thinking about how infinite such an open expanse of water was. It felt like the perfect parallel to life and its endless possibilities.
What did I want to do with my life? Where did I want to go? Who did I want to be?… I questioned often during those youthful days.
And now staring out at that same view at 38 years old, it’s amazing how much has changed in my own life over the years but also how much that sentiment of endless possibilities remains the same. When some doors close, others open. You just have to be ready to step through.
So far my life has not played out anything like I had expected; a myriad of achieved accomplishments not foretold and other grave tragedies unforeseen strewn together. But I’ve enjoyed the jubilations paired with the travesties just the same and wouldn’t change anything for the world.
Yet, the more I continued to drive and stare out over the ocean, the more I reflected on how reaching financial independence can be that golden ticket for someone – a tool to shape whatever dream a second chapter in life with endless possibilities might bring.
There will never be a better time to change, than NOW.
So why do so few of us understand this? Why do so few of us actually take action? Why can’t we invoke this change?
I think one of the biggest problems people face, is that they can’t see the possibilities out there. For whatever reasons, their imagination has been beaten out of them.
They feel trapped.
I equate this line of thinking to an analogy with our senses. Over time as we stop using our senses as intended, like sight or hearing, they dull. We forget how attune they can become if we pay attention to them and hone them to the level our bodies in the wild intended. But stuck in mundane office jobs, it’s no wonder we go blind staring at screens or our hearing is reduced. We don’t use these senses to their capability, so we lose them.
To me, the same thing is happening with our younger generations and their imaginations.
You attend a university at a young age full of hope, ideas and imagination. Follow your passion you’re told. Then you get a job in corporate America and the life is sucked right out of you. You wonder, is this all there is to life? This unending assembly line until the end?
So you get stuck in a routine that slowly bleeds out the hope and imagination you first had: commute, work, maybe you get weekends off and then two weeks of vacation. But this routine doesn’t fulfill you. If anything, it drains you.
Then the self-limiting beliefs set in. You grind along and begin to question yourself. Your confidence wains and you see no way out. You keep your head down, play ball with office politics and hope that you can keep your job in the next downturn.
Finally, you try to buy your way to the promised land, as all the capitalistic marketing tells you, you should. And you make it. You bought the house, the car, the life. You’re at the top of the mountain, the pinnacle of your success.
But something’s wrong. You feel empty. The happiness you were sold never materializes.
And this is where we are. When we look ourselves in the mirror as a society, the status quo isn’t working. People are more stressed, unhappy and unhealthy than ever before.
The average American is overweight, has almost no net worth and doesn’t know how to save.
Flat out, we are losing the game.
I’m a hopeful and positive person, but I don’t have any answers. I believe on a personal level; financial independence is a necessary step to get to where I want to go. But I’m not naïve and realize it is only a first step and it’s up to me to fill my life with the meaning I seek.
But as for the rest of mainstream American society, it pains me to say that I have no answer whatsoever. I don’t know how you right this ship?
And there’s nothing that saddens me more than talking to someone who feels trapped in their life. Whether it’s financial, work, or relationship stresses, these are only temporary problems. Yet, in the moment, they feel unsurmountable.
And I understand that. I know what if feels like to be stuck in a routine and feel like there is no way out.
But what I really struggle with, is how do I help spark action? How do I help people see the endless possibilities that can be awaiting them? How can we stoke these imaginations to fire again and break through the self-limiting beliefs? Are we alone in these endeavors as a community and have to settle for more of the same?
I don’t know. Do you have an answer?
Then post it in the comments below, and tell me how we can be better as a FI community.
And the next time you stare out over the ocean (or beautiful green forest if you don’t live by water), remember one thing: the possibilities are endless.
-Q-FI
P.S. To all the racers out there… keep on pushing to end 2019 strong and up those goals for 2020! We are our own limitation.
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