I was recently sent a self help presentation that basically asked that we all learn to separate what they called Means Goals and End Goals. A Means Goal is basically a means to an end and the End Goal is that end result. My Means Goal is to reach financial independence through working and saving while still living life to the fullest.
My End Goal and the reason I want financial freedom is so that I can experience, without stress or time limitations, my family and friends – wherever they are. I would also like to learn more about how this wonderful world of ours works, from gardening to space flight. I understand these things at a basic level, but I want to truly understand them and as a result have a larger impact on the world around me. I want to learn how to tile a bathroom and install insulation – I want to know how to alter and maintain the life I build for myself. I want the ability to stay up all night reading a fascinating novel without feeling guilty about the repercussions for the rest of my week. I want to be able to travel hack to my heart’s content and plan trips based on their convenience for my friends and their price, not what time I need to be at work on Monday. I want to be able to do whatever I want on my own time.
Even outside all the activities I want to do and time I want to enjoy with the people I love, I want to be free of unnecessary stress. For reasons I still haven’t figured out every job I’ve ever had has caused me to be quite stressed – not only at work, but outside of it. I’m not sure if this is a result of there no longer being such a thing as ‘unavailable’ or if it’s something else, but it does not matter if I’m at work, at home or on a tropical island thousands of miles away: I continually feel stress directly related to my job. My brain’s always thinking of how to anticipate and combat work problems and planning five steps ahead. I’ve tried everything I can think of to stop this continual knot in my chest from forming – it’s even there when I’m just searching for my next job. This feeling negatively affects my entire life and I’m ready to be rid of it.
I’ve analyzed it extensively and it’s not the press of deadlines or the weight of responsibility – I’ve felt that throughout school, when my decisions had a direct impact on my future. Daily work does not. It somehow links to working for someone else for their agenda and losing the rest of my life to stress as a result. I am still trying to control this strange response my body seems to have, but in the meantime I’m going to confront the source.
The book Your Money or Your Life said it more eloquently than I can: looking at the modern workplace we are not making a living, but “making a dying.” And I want the most important commodity in my life: my time.
Thank you so much for this post. The underlying stress you describe is exactly what I’ve been going through for years – it’s horrible when you’re with family and friends or as you say being sat on a beach but being unable to extinguish and switch off that background stress and knot in chest.
I thought this was unique to me and this is further encouragement for me to continue on the FI journey. Thanks again!
It’s definitely not just you 🙂 . I’m sorry you feel that too, but am so happy you have a plan to escape!