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.
Continue reading “Four Years of Financial Independence: The Slow Growth”
