Do not mistake retirement for the end goal

A new take on an old aspiration - F.I.R.E. club

A core pillar of my belief system that to this day remains unchanged, is around the value of time. Much like how Lin-Manuel Miranda depicts Alexander Hamilton (minus the accolades), I have always had this looming feeling that “I’m running out of time”, and that I would be in a good place when I somehow gained mastery over my time.

I trace this back to when I was browsing reddit and Facebook posts in high school, and first came across the term F.I.R.E. (Financial Independence, Retire Early) club. I remember clicking into random threads which would lead me down a spiral of users exclaiming they were in their late 20s or early 30s and on track to retire in a few years. There were a few recurring themes that I observed from these people; 1) They were working lucrative high-paying fresh graduate jobs 2) They had side hustles or other businesses 3) They invested a large portion of their cashflow (whether into their own businesses or into the stock market). These people would illustrate a life of hard work followed by “well-earned” relaxation, which to me at the time, seemed conceptually sound and contrarian to the alternative of slaving away for 50+ years. After all, who has the self awareness to not be allured by the idea of accelerated retirement when still a teenager. All you would have to do is grind it out for about 10 years post-graduation, then enjoy the fruits of your labor whether you prefer to be huddled up at home with a book, spend your hours outdoors in the sun, or commit yourself to constantly learning new skills. You could finally free yourself from the shackles of society and live your own time on your own terms.

Looking back now, FIRE club was like an older brother that preyed on vulnerable areas of my beliefs while they were being shaped, using me to convince myself that this would be the right trajectory. All the while, brushing aside the ironic self contradiction that was - to gain directive over your future time, you would have to trade an uncertain amount of your “prime” years. Cut to current day (where I unironically picked consulting as a first job out of University, and have continued my career adventure laterally), and I came across an excerpt by one of these so called FIRE club members sharing their refreshed perspective on FIRE after early “retirement”.

Retirement is worst-case scenario insurance. Retirement, much like life insurance, should be viewed as nothing more than a hedge against the absolute worst case scenario. In this case, becoming physically incapable of working and needing a reservoir of capital to survive.

Retirement as a goal or final redemption is flawed for at least 3 solid reasons:

1. It is predicated on the assumption that you dislike what you are doing during the most physically capable years of your life - this is a non-starter, nothing can justify that sacrifice

2. Most people will never be able to retire and maintain even a hotdogs standard of living - even USD $1 million is chumps change in a world where traditional retirement could span 30 years and inflation reduces your purchasing power 100s of basis points a year - the math does not check out

3. If the math does work, that means you are one ambitious, hardworking machine - if that is the case, one week of retirement will render you bored out of your mind and you will likely opt to start a new job or business soon thereafter, kind of defeats the purpose…

There is no winner in retiring early, and there is no shortage of time in our golden years - just whether we choose to prioritize time on things we value. The easiest way to tend towards happiness is to minimize whatever leads to the opposite of happiness. The antonym of “happiness” by definition is “sadness”, but also often coined by many others as “boredom”. Maybe then we can try to attract happiness by seeking excitement in replacement of boredom.

I had always romanticized the idea of having all my time to myself after retirement, but rarely considered what to do with that time if I had it. I mistook retirement for the end goal.

Do not mistake retirement for the goal.

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Almost threw a Kelly Wakasa DO WHAT EXCITES motto in there at the end…

Thank you to

Irene Huang

and

Iliyan Kermedchiev

for always encouraging me to write more. Writing is therapeutic but often also feels overtly vulnerable. That alone is reason enough to continue!