Full Pursuit of Climbing Isn’t Full Freedom After All

This week’s post was written as a guest post for the UK-based Chalkbloc.com. I’ll admit, there’s a bit of controversy here. I love climbing as much as the next guy, but I believe that full pursuit of the sport can leave us a bit unbalanced. Steve Bechtel, in his interview here last week, rightfully points out that no one is really all that balanced. You’ll hear no argument from me, but we might as well try. Financial stability is very simple, but not necessarily easy. Let’s see what it really takes to find the freedom we’ve been longing for.

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Dogs and Your Money: An Ode to Man’s Best Friend

The pursuit of financial independence is a pursuit of happiness. Money is not the goal. Money is the vehicle that allows for a life centered around happiness. We write here about a philosophy centered around simple living and simple investing, but at the end of the day the entire goal is to provide more time to acquire true and meaningful fulfillment in our lives. Writing about this stuff often makes me feel like a bit of a used car salesman — convincing people to invest in stocks and open up credit cards — so I’m happy to take this opportunity to write more freely about, well, life. And dogs.

It’s very exciting to get wrapped up in all the ways to optimize, all the short-cuts and refinements, but I’m sometimes reminded of how quickly all the joys in life can be suddenly upended.

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