For four years I’ve watched something slowly bloom. In my old life, the “before time” you might call it, I moved from task to task. If I wasn’t working, I unknowingly made a practice of turning recreational or hobbyist pursuits into something that, from an outsider’s perspective, looked an awful lot like work. Goals and accolades were everything, and the more quantifiable, the better. But the farther I’ve separated myself from this life in space and time, the more clarity I’ve gained.
Grasping for metaphors, I was tempted to explain this budding awareness as a slowly growing flower. But for perhaps all the wrong reasons, I hesitated to describe my growth and awareness as floral, preferring to drop the metaphor. But I can’t quite shake it, because I have watched something slowly grow. It’s not me that has bloomed–again, all the wrong imagery–but it is the world I could not see then. I could not see the flawed logic buried in the cold and wet earth because I identified with it. It was my life, so I could not reject what protected me. And four years later I’ve watched something slowly take root.
Listen to the Podcast: Four Years of Financial Independence
Previous Yearly Reviews
Six Lessons From a Year Without a Job
Seven Lessons From Two Years of Financial Freedom
Five Lessons from Three Years of Financial Independence
America’s Favorite Addiction
Busyness is America’s most beloved addiction. We praise CEOs and even artists who burn the midnight oil and crack proverbial whips at everyone around them. Rise to my level of dedication, they say. Elon Musk once tweeted, referring to his companies Tesla and SpaceX, “There are way easier places to work, but nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week.”
Hustle might be the verb and noun of my generation. Let’s face it: our heroes are all workaholics. Look no further than the Times Magazine Person of the Year, Taylor Swift. Now, I know better than to cast shadows on everyone’s favorite pop star, but let’s be real: The Eras Tour is a worldwide event, with 151 shows in cities across the globe, on five of the seven continents. I’d only be slightly surprised if she added a date at the Space Station.
Climbing, a sport once lauded for its spirit of exploration, camaraderie, and story-telling rich as winter stew, is increasingly being distilled down to a bleached culture of achievement and gamification. Get more pitches, top more boulders, and build pyramids. The implicit assumption is that the pinnacle of experience is top-end performance, and anything less is simply unrealized potential. Trainers and podcasters give occasional lip service to “having fun,” but go on to outline tactics and methods to get stronger, fitter, and quite possibly miserable. The infinite ways to find more depth, meaning, and perhaps even transcendence appear less and less significant. Something that should be a reprieve from the busyness of life is just a part of the pile for far too many, another source of anxiety.
Do More. Be More.
The point is that we learn from an early age to value more. Do more. Be more. When I started a website, and later a podcast, the online advice was (and still is) all the same. Post often. Post more. Get on social media. Get on YouTube. Pin things. Tweet things. Leave comments on everyone’s blog. Make reels. Post often. Post more. Flood the zone. Hustle. Grind. Do more. Be more.
It’s no longer enough to be a good worker, a person of integrity and character. Now you need a LinkedIn account. But the real competition doesn’t just post an online resume and a nice head shot. The real competition posts courageous and inspiring stories of redemption and adversity on their lunch break. So, on top of those basic technical and soft skills that once provided a good life, let’s add the pressure of being a writer and influencer. Do more. Be more. My doctor in Utah had an Instagram account for the practice. Had I known I would have left. I wish I would have.
It’s no longer enough to walk. You must bring along a podcast or audiobook. And listen on 2x. And count your steps. Some argue walking itself has become a form of unbearable smugness, the latest victim of the productive-obsessed and goal-driven. Do more. Be more.
The cruel irony is that we believe in this path.
The Ghost Within Us All
Busyness is ultimately a distraction from the ghost within us all. And in an increasingly connected world, it’s never been easier to see how much harder everyone is working, how much better everyone else appears to be living. The real truth is that we all have a skeleton or two in the closet, and those we admire most might harbor a pile of bones. We are all a hundred times crazier than we reveal to the world. Far too many favor the busy and successful shell over the true and inner being. Those happiest of all might even be considered boring.
The attributes and traits favored by modern society create states of unnatural stimulation and hyper-arousal, a condition that has affected me on a personal level from constant feelings of inadequacy to even chronic pain. The cruel irony is that we believe in this path. I certainly did. We all want to be happy, but our very actions undermine even the best of intentions. It takes time away, a different perspective, to realize the futility and waste in all that effort to achieve what is, with the culture of do-more-be-more, unachievable: satisfaction.
Aristotle would be spinning in his grave. The key pillars of a meaningful life can’t flourish when we are constantly trying to be better than we were the day before. We have to be enough. No matter what happens, we’ll be fine. I’m slowly learning the shockingly simple math of satisfaction: happiness is what we have minus what we want.
Four Years: I’ve Watched Something Slowly Grow
In this fourth year, I’m learning to reject the do-more-be-more culture. I’m permitting myself to roll slowly out of bed, laying with my cortisol drip and trying to forgive it all. I’m learning to care less if I miss a week or three of posting here. I don’t have any climbing projects, and it feels fantastic. I haven’t used social media in over a year, I go entire days without checking email, and I spend more time with people. And it’s a lot better. It’s liberating. I sometimes even walk without a podcast. But I still count my steps.
I once half-joked that achieving financial independence was my greatest achievement. I was wrong. Learning to live, to simply be, with any luck will be my best and least noteworthy accomplishment. For four years I’ve watched a something slowly bloom. But it isn’t me. It’s everything I hope to leave behind.
Cheers,
Chad
February 2024
Wow, this was an amazing blog post. Probably one of the best I’ve seen since the early days of the MMM blog. There’s too much to unwrap with a simple reply other than to say, THANK YOU!!
Thank YOU!
😬
Love the “happiness is what we have minus what we want” quote. So true.
Yeah, it’s one of those great phrases to keep in your back pocket. That said, it took me years to finally “get it,” to appreciate and begin to implement some sort of practice of subtraction, or at least acceptance.
Very well said. Been my motto for the last few years and such a relief to give up a lot of things that never really mattered. It makes routine and sometimes mundane even enjoyable. But much less, acceptable
Thank you for this insight!