It’s Not Always About the Destination; Except When It Is
The destination to FIRE can seem like it’s all about getting to that endpoint, but that’s not really what it’s about right? Isn’t it more about the journey and the freedom you’re giving yourself by getting to that stage of your life? There are loads of posts about “enjoy the journey” and “we shouldn’t be focused on the end goal, we should be present”. Hell, I think my 2017 goals were to be more relaxed and present and quit worrying about the end goal. I think the best description of trying to get to FIRE, is from Maggie at Northern Expenditure when she describes it as a “sprint followed by a rest on a moving sidewalk”. I second that feeling!
So then what am I talking about with the destination being important? Well, imagine you’ve been working towards your version of FIRE and a few weeks before you hit your number you find out that, nope, that number has been moved, the dates have changed, sorry, Wally World’s Closed… That’s how I felt this past weekend when I found out my 1st Olympic triathlon that was scheduled for March 5th was bumped back to Oct. 8th. Yeah, friggin’ October! So how does this relate to personal finance, early retirement, financial independence and your own planning? Bascially, there’s only so much you can control, so how do you plan for it? I don’t know, and I’m no financial planner, but let’s discuss the similarities that I found between the sheet being pulled out from underneath me with the race and how that could happen close to reaching FI.
