The question I’ve been asked a lot lately since I’m financially independent (meaning my passive income exeeds my expenses) is: why are you CHOOSING to work? It’s not easy to explain to those questing to quit, why someone with the option to never work again would conciously choose to work.
So, I’m going to attempt to explain it. First, I have to share that I did retire, or as I prefer to say – FREEtire in 2015. I left a job that I hated that had totally depleted me mentally and spiritually. Through a series of smart investments and frugal decisions, I had enough income from rental properties that I no longer needed to work, so when that horrible, horrible job ended I sort of just collapsed and decided to stop working. I didn’t look for work – instead I meditated, prayed, worked out, volunteered, and spent a ton of quality time with family and friends. About six months into this life of leisure, I started to feel restless and without purpose. I came to the conclusion that I was too young to tap out of a W2 salary. Also, I wanted to expand my investments and no banks would lend me any money without a “job”.
Around that same time, I started getting really interesting job offers out of the blue. I was consulting and then I got an offer that I would never had considered before free-tiring but it was perfect: highly paid, remote, challenging, and fun. I like making money and working isn’t much of a burden when you like your job.
So, the question arises again…now that you have 7 rental units, almost zero debt and a paid off house, plus a million dollar plus net worth. The great job is over (thanks COVID-19), but it wasn’t ever really needed, so why get ANOTHER job?
The short answer is I don’t know. I think some of it is American societal pressure to be productive, some of it is my own need for the validation that I can still comman a salary/get a job, some of it is that I am a real estate investor and realize that a W2 job makes borrowing easier, and some of it is the security of having health care paid for by someone else. I also like the ability to continue to stack even more cash and investments to get closer to fatFIRE – a more oppulent early retirement. Lastly, I’m still in my 30s and feel like it would be a waste to miss out on the prime earning years of my 30s and possibly 40s as long as I’m enjoying the work and can do it on my terms.
All that being said, I’m feeling less and less motivated to continue to work a W2 job…COVID knocked some of the wind out of my sales and I’m contemplating taking another replenishing siesta from work. We’ll see. I just started a new gig at an AMAZING company and I want to give it a chance. We’ll see.
The world is pretty much shut down indefinitely anyways, so it seems prudent to make some money while joyfully sequestered at home with my loved ones. During the lovely moments of downtime that remote work allows, however, I will be thinking long and hard about what truly creates meaning and purpose in my life and making joyful moves towards increasing THAT each and every day. In the meantime, I’m gonna keep getting those checks…
Freelennial 